


phantom me, phantom you

by WaveGoodbye



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23771212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaveGoodbye/pseuds/WaveGoodbye
Summary: During a police call out, Wynonna and Nicole are glamoured by a new revenant in town. Their bodies are fine but mentally they’re in a shared reality, a hospital called Redgrave. The gang have to come to terms with their state and figure out a way to help. Waverly, it would appear, is the key to unlocking it all.
Relationships: Waverly Earp & Wynonna Earp, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp & Nicole Haught
Comments: 40
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

_ It's dark _ , Nicole thinks when her alarm first cuts through the blissful silence. She thinks she’s hit the snooze button on her phone twice before there's a hand on her thigh above the duvet and a slight dip on the mattress followed by a gentle murmuring of her name. Waverly’s voice is always nice to wake up to. She is always gentle in rousing her back to the land of the living. Nicole whines softly, knowing Waverly would only be there if she’d repeatedly slept through the alarm. That means that it’s almost time for her double night shift, out in the cold where the wind will sting her face. It means she can't spend the night with Waverly.    
  
It is hardly motivation.   
  
“I'm sick.”   
  
“You are not.”   
  
Nicole peels her tired eyes open and a faint smile pulls upon seeing Waverly's amusement. Her eyes close again and she grunts her disapproval of Waverly not believing her fib.    
  
“Time to get up,” Waverly prompts kindly, her hand moving to tame unruly red hair.   
  
Nicole rolls away from her, onto her stomach, stretching out in the middle of the bed. Waverly doesn’t need to be able to see Nicole’s face to know her eyes have fallen closed, lips parted. Nicole is always the first of the two awake in a morning, eager to start the day, but right now she feels no enthusiasm to head out on her third sixteen hour shift in a row.    
  
Luckily she only has one more and then she’s free for an entire weekend.    
  
Waverly still knows that Nicole is in need of some extra persuasion to get up. Not even brushing her finger over a sleep-warm, ticklish upturned palm has helped.    
  
Nicole frowns at the rush of cold air against her bare legs but her face breaks out into a smile when she feels the full weight of her girlfriend pressed against her back, the covers pulled back up high over them both. Nicole turns over without thinking about it, legs falling open once Waverly lifts up enough to allow the movement.   
  
The soft kisses at her neck are sloppy and they tickle, enough so that Nicole’s eyes open when the sensation proves too much to bear. She feels Waverly’s ridiculous smirk against her skin as she attempts to wriggle her shoulder enough to cease the attack.    
  
“Are you awake now?” Waverly asks with laughter in her voice.    
  
“No.”    
  
“Good morning.”   
  
Nicole's voice is soft when she returns the sentiment. Waverly frowns at her when she turns her head away from a real kiss. “Let me brush my teeth first.” Nicole bends at the waist and tries to wriggle out of the bed, and she’s halfway successful in her endeavor. Waverly isn’t that much smaller than she is, and Nicole knows she’s fit,, but the rapid display of physical strength still takes Nicole by surprise. Before she can slip out from under Waverly, Nicole finds her head and shoulders awkwardly pushed against the carpet while her legs and hips remain on the bed. Waverly looks down at her innocently, arms locked around long legs.    
  
“I want you to know, I was bored mid-afternoon so I came up here and watched you sleep for a while.”   
  
“Great.” Nicole struggles apathetically.    
  
“I did! You're so sweet when you don't talk back.”   
  
Nicole grins but she really wants to brush her teeth and then jump back into bed for a few minutes while she still has enough time. That won’t happen if they keep this up.    
  
“I'm getting a cramp!” Waverly opens her arms wide, releasing her grip, and Nicole’s legs flop gracelessly to the floor. Waverly takes Nicole's previous spot on the bed and makes herself comfortable.    
  
“Hurry, baby.”   
  
Nicole takes her time brushing her teeth and it’s nice now, it’s nice that she and Waverly have moved past the honeymoon stage of their relationship and survived the darkness. They’re more comfortable now. Nicole doesn’t think she’s ever been more  _ anything  _ than she is with Waverly. She didn’t know she could be so silly, so in love, and so absolutely sure of who she is as a woman. She’s happier than she has ever been.   
  
The light is on when she walks back into the bedroom and closes the door behind her. Waverly’s infectious smile claims her as a victim almost instantly, especially when she notices that Waverly’s jeans are now on the floor beside the bed.   
  
Nicole leans in for a quick peck on the cheek and kneels on the bed, settling herself against the headboard. Waverly turns into her, placing her hands on Nicole’s shoulders as she straddles Nicole's hips and lowers herself into her lap. They both lean in at the same time for a kiss that makes waking up so incredibly worth it, always. Waverly is the first to pull back, an unexpected frown on her face.    
  
“What?”   
  
“How much Listerine did you use?” Waverly smacks her lips together, grimacing. “Like, the whole bottle or...?”   
  
“I'm way too tired for your mouth.”   
  
“Never.”   
  
Well, she's not  _ wrong _ .   
  
“Have a Starburst or something. I think I have some in my drawer.”   
  
Nicole kisses her instead, deeply, and Waverly kisses her back just as passionately. They kiss and kiss, long enough to lose themselves in the heat between them, to get caught up so much so that the only way out of the fire would be to give themselves over to it. As ever, Nicole slows them down before there’s no going back, finishing with a kiss to Waverly’s forehead and the tip of her nose.    
  
Her hands tighten around Waverly’s sides to brace her weight as she leans over, reaching for the bedside drawer. Nicole pushes easily through Waverly’s resistance until Waverly finds herself flat on her back at the bottom of the bed.   
  
That’s how they find themselves wrestling on the bed like idiots in the first place.   
  
Waverly is airplaned ridiculously above Nicole via a tight grip of her hands and feet at her thighs. There’s a stubborn, determined crease on Nicole’s face as Waverly laughs, kicking and struggling.    
  
Nicole doesn’t have time to revel in victory for long at all.    
  
A loud and unexpected hammering at the door startles her enough that she drops Waverly. Luckily though, she falls into her open legs. It would only be Wynonna. It was always only ever Wynonna.   
  
“One of these days we should flash your butt. She really would be embarrassed.”   
  
“We're not flashing my butt.”   
  
Waverly props herself up, hands either side of Nicole’s head. “We can't flash mine, she won't care.”   
  
“Your sister is not seeing my butt, Waverly.”   
  
Wynonna bangs the door once more.    
  
Knowing their alone time is about to be cut short, Nicole grabs Waverly's face with both hands and pushes into her cheeks, manipulating Waverly’s mouth until her lips are puckered. “Can we kill her?”   
  
Waverly shakes her head.   
  
“Can we stay at my place tomorrow?”   
  
Waverly nods.    
  
Wynonna walks in shielding her eyes. “Are you working tonight?”   
  
“Me?” Waverly asks, moving to sit up.    
  
“If your name is Nicole, yeah.”   
  
“Soon,” Nicole confirms. “Why?”   
  
“Just wondered if it would be a fun crowd tonight. The guys want me to go in, so.”   
  
“I can come,” Waverly offers eagerly.    
  
“No biggie, just the rumour mill turning according to dear ol’ Doc. Probably turn out to be nothing, anyway. No point us both losing sleep. You can cook us breakfast,” Wynonna adds with a cheeky smirk, carefully peeling her hand away from her eyes. “You both have makeout face.”   
  
“Yeah,” Nicole says plainly. “Thank you for blessing us with your presence.”   
  
“Any time!” Wynonna calls on her way out of the room, leaving the door wide open.    
  
  


  
  
  


Several hours into her shift and Nicole can say with ease that it’s been a slow one. She would never actually say it out loud. Hell, no. You never take a slow shift for granted in law enforcement. It changes so quickly, she’s come to find on her time on the job, and while she doesn’t enjoy  _ boredom _ she does appreciate  _ calm _ . It happens so rarely in Purgatory.    
  
Her private phone shows a flashing blue light and she checks for a message on her way to fill up the coffee pot.    
  
It’s Waverly: a bedtime selfie, totally innocent in her ‘Nap Queen’ PJs with an exaggerated pucker of her lips. Nicole double checks the coast is clear and promptly lifts her phone, scrunching up her face as she returns a big, silly kiss the only way she can until morning.    
  
“You know what,” Wynonna bellows during a dramatic exit of the BBD office, “ _ You’re _ suspended!”   
  
“I run this office, Earp,” Dolls comes back with, a frustrated edge to his normally calm disposition. “It was just a suggestion.”   
  
“Then I’m suspending myself!” she screeches. “With full pay!”   
  
“A few days to yourself is actually what I said.”   
  
“That is typically called a vacation,” Nicole pipes up in agreement with him.   
  
Wynonna slams the door shut because Dolls and Doc  _ and  _ Jeremy lured her into the office under false pretenses just so that they could tag-team her on a stupid little intervention. How dare they come at her when she doesn’t have Waverly there with her.    
  
“Please, God, not you too. Seriously, I’ve had my fill.”   
  
“Coffee?”   
  
“There’s that big brain of yours.”   
  
Nicole sees the defensive way in which Wynonna holds herself, sees the frustrated fire to her eyes, and underneath all of it she sees the kind of vulnerability that she is always surprised to find in Wynonna. It can come on as quickly as it takes for Nicole to blink sometimes and it throws her so damn hard every single time. Wynonna is an enigma all right.    
  
“As someone who cares about you, I just— I want you to know there are a lot of coping mechanisms not involving anything destructive and, when you’re ready, I’m here. We're all here.”   
  
“Ew.”   
  
Nicole smiles. “I’m serious.” Her phone screen lights up, a screensaver of her favourite Waverly and Calamity Jane photo illuminating for a couple of seconds before it goes black again. Nicole unlocks her security passcode and laughs softly at Waverly showing her tongue.   
  
Wynonna pretends she doesn't see it, knowing Nicole and Waverly deserve to be gross and happy. She knows it’s Waverly. Nobody else makes Nicole so ridiculously, disgustingly happy.   
  
“Me too.” She sighs. “I’m just tired of everyone walking on goddamn egg shells around me. The guys? They're being so  _ nice  _ and considerate that I can barely stand to be around them.”   
  
“Guys aren't the only option.”   
  
Wynonna kicks a foot up against Nicole’s rear. “Hey. You’ve met my sister, right?” She gestures to hip level. “About yea tall, face like a truck backed over it, and super, super jealous? Don’t let her hear you talking like that.”   
  


Nicole rolls her eyes. “I'm a great  _ listener _ .”

  
“No, I need someone to hang out with. Blow off the rest of your shift and come for a ride with me? It's parked out front.”

  
“You know I would if I could.”

  
“Yeah, yeah.”   
  
“This weekend?” Nicole tries, knowing Wynonna wouldn't have asked if she really didn't want or need to do it. “Ask Wave, too?”   
  
Wynonna looks disappointed but she takes it on the chin.    
  
“Wanna take a look through some cold cases?” Nicole offers instead, as she fills the water pot for the coffee.    
  
Wynonna shrugs. “Why not? This place has been dead all week.” She blanches when Nicole turns and drops the pot on the counter with a thud, smiling apologetically to diffuse the rapidly rising tension. Her hands wring together. “Sorry.”   
  
“You know the rule!”   
  
Wynonna’s hands go up in surrender. “Don’t shoot.”   
  
“Seriously, you can’t say that. You  _ don’t  _ say that, ever.”   
  
“Alright, settle down.”   
  
  
They’re a half a cup of coffee down and settled in to going through a file together when a voice comes over the radio. Wynonna chokes on her coffee before they even know the nature of the call.    
  


It’s a noise disturbance, vague details other than a location. It’s away from the residential area, about fifteen minutes from the centre of town. Nicole utters her apology before she takes the call and offers a time estimate, gathering her jacket and hat on her way out. She almost makes it through the entire building, adjusting her hat and bracing for the cold when she notices Wynonna coming up behind her.    
  
“I’ll follow up behind you. Just in case.”   
  


“You don't have to.”

  
“I know.”

  
They've all been doing that a lot lately, since everything with the Widows and Bulshar, Alice being sent away... keeping an extra eye on each other. Just in case.    
  
  
  
  
  
Traffic is sparse that time of night and they make it to scene in good time. Nicole checks her mirror to see Wynonna coming to a slow roll beside her cruiser, feet carefully following the bike until it comes to a stop. She reaches for her radio. “Kate, this is Haught, I’m 10-23. No obvious signs of a disturbance but I’ll walk the area. Deputy Earp is on scene also.”   
  
“10-4. Male caller sounded pretty ticked off about the noise but left no ID or an exact address. Let’s make sure there’s been no display of one of the seven deadly sins from the upstanding male citizens of Purgatory?”   
  
Nicole smiles. “You got it. I’ll advise.”   
  
Wynonna is waiting for her, standing stiff against the wind. “It’s colder than Waverly’s cold shoulder out here,” she says as they fall into a steady walk.   
  
“You’re not wrong.”    
  
“Thought I was going to stop my bike and be like that scene in Dumb and Dumber.” She zips her jacket up higher. “So, a noise disturbance?”   
  
Nicole nods in response, listening closely. She detects nothing out of the ordinary.    
  
It looks quiet in the street, the way it does most nights. It’s normal to the point of forgettable, but as they make their way back up the street there's suddenly a figure laying across the road, almost undetectable next to a car and under a faulty street light. Nicole’s hand finds Wynonna’s arm and then she  _ runs _ .   
  
A woman lays at the side of the street in an awkward, unnatural angle. Her legs, left arm, and pelvis are broken, obviously so upon sight alone. Once they get closer they determine that the damage inside the poor woman's body isn't just bad, it's catastrophic.

Wynonna stares and her stomach turns over. She gasps uselessly. She’s been around so much destruction and heartache and she thinks that maybe it’s easier when it’s because of revenants. There’s a way to compartmentalise and, to an extent, rationalise the horror. There’s no part of Wynonna that can rationalise some scumbag _human_ causing this kind of damage and running away. 

Nicole goes into autopilot. She kneels down and presses her fingers to her radio. “Kate, it’s Haught. Possible hit and run. I need an ambulance, now.”

“10-4, Haught.”   
  
“Five minutes ago, Kate.”   
  
“Putting in the request now. Suspect at scene?”   
  
Wynonna is already scanning around but the whole street is dead quiet. Nobody is there, not even a damaged car or tyre marks on the ground.   
  
“Looks like he’s fled, but I can’t be sure. Send back-up.”   
  
The light is limited but it’s enough to see the woman’s frightened eyes open and Nicole forces a smile to her face even though she feels it shake. “Hey,” she says soothingly. “Hey, sweetie. I'm Nicole. I'm here to help. You took a pretty big tumble.”

“S— Sa—” The woman's torso tightens and she gasps.

Wynonna slowly lowers down to her knees and tries to lighten the area with the torch on her phone, placing it on the ground beside them. She lifts a lock of dark, matted hair away from the woman's forehead. “Shhh, save your strength.”

The woman's body tightens again. “Doesn't hurt. Don't— don't even know why it's…” She trails off through another uncontrollable spasm. Tears soak down into her hair. “Sarah.”

Nicole frowns and places her hand over Sarah's, keeping the pressure light. “Hey, it's okay. We're gonna have a hot paramedic here in no time.” She looks to Wynonna. “Right? Tell her.”

“Are we,” Wynonna confirms as she shrugs out of her jacket to drape it over Sarah’s torso. “You're cute but how's your game?”

“Engaged,” Sarah almost smiles. “Saturday we'll be…” 

“Solid,” Wynonna surmises, impressed. 

“I want to hear all about how you met,” Nicole begins, her voice calm and kind. “But first, I need you to think for me. Do you remember seeing anything? The colour or make of the car, who was driving?”

Sarah's searching expression turns frustrated. “No.”

“That's okay, it's okay. You're doing great.”

Wynonna listens for the telltale siren but hears nothing. 

Sarah's body tightens again, a wet, wheezing sound escaping. Her eyes widen. “Wait. Red.”

Nicole is on edge, listening closely. “Red? A red car?” 

“Eyes.” 

Nicole's lips part and Wynonna grits her teeth. It always comes back to the curse. Always.

“Tell Victor…”

“Tell him yourself,” Wynonna interrupts shortly. “You’re good to go. You’re fine.”

Nicole continues to brush her thumb over Sarah's hand. Her throat feels thick and she swallows it down. It's not the time for that. This isn’t about  _ her  _ at all. She maneuvers her hand around Sarah’s to hold it, offering what little comfort she can. “What would you like me to tell him?”

Sarah smiles faintly and her voice has grown quieter. “That he's the best thing that ever happened to me. I'd give anything to be able to taste his overcooked omelettes for breakfast tomorrow.” 

Nicole thinks of hours earlier when she was eating before her night shift, Waverly had burned her grilled cheese sandwich. Sarah begins to cry, her breath turning shallow. Nicole wipes her eyes and shushes her. Wynonna is rigid, furious.

“Tell him to put my wedding ring on me.”

Nicole nods. “Of course I will.”

It’s a moment before they realise Sarah has passed away quietly between breaths.    
  
Wynonna touches her face. “Hey. Hey, c’mon.”   
  
“Wynonna, she’s—”   
  
Her touch turns slightly harder against Sarah’s face trying to rouse her. They can both hear the ambulance sirens now. It’s close.    
  
It’s close, and it’s too late.    
  
As soon as Nicole’s hand touches hers, Wynonna pulls it away and climbs to her feet. Nicole wants to go to her but she can’t because she’s still holding Sarah’s hand and she doesn’t want to let go just yet.    
  
Wynonna breathes heavily but eventually she laughs, clipped and full of disbelief. She closes her eyes, mouth tight.    
  
“It’s okay,” Nicole says.   
  
“No, it’s not.”   
  
It wasn’t, but Nicole didn’t have much else yet.    
  
Wynonna’s eyes snap open. “Where the fuck is he?” she demands. “You want my attention, asshole, you got it! Let's go!”   
  
All they can hear is the ambulance.    
  
Nicole touches her free hand to her radio. “Kate, it’s Haught,” she starts, voice flat and defeated. “Victim didn’t make it. EMT to confirm.”   
  
A whistle comes from across the street, an imitation of the ambulance siren. They both turn towards it. Red eyes greet them.    
  
Wynonna’s hand reaches for Peacemaker in a smooth motion, a dance she’s perfected. “Oh, are you in for a ride.”   
  
Out of instinct alone, Nicole draws her weapon as well despite knowing it wouldn’t actually kill him. It will at least slow him down. Naively, even with Sarah’s body next to her, it makes her feel slightly safer.    
  
A man begins to stalk forward and sends Peacemaker flying with a simple wave of his hand.    
  
Wynonna doesn’t care and she doesn’t  _ think _ , she heads right towards him. Nicole is on her feet as quickly as her body will allow her. Usual protocol doesn’t apply, not with revenants, not with one of her own at risk. There is no need for a warning. Two shots fire out from her gun in rapid succession, hitting him in the shoulder. It swings out to the left like he’s taken nothing but a hard punch. For a second, it makes her think of Tucker.    
  
Wynonna feels Nicole’s hand at her arm, and then all they see is blue.    
  
  
  


  
  
Wynonna hangs upside down, blood pooling steadily in her head. Her eyes remain shut but she can hear the noise around her. It's almost background now; she’s skillfully adept at switching off when she needs to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. 

“Hello! Welcome to Redgrave!”

Sometimes though, no matter how hard she tries, nothing can pull her away from this shithole. 

Wynonna chews up what's left of a Red Vine and opens her eyes. She sees shoes first: high heels, black loafers, and purple Puma tennis shoes.

When the throbbing in her head becomes too much she swings her legs around until she's upright on the sofa, adjusting to the blood pumping through her body again. There's the overly friendly woman from administration showing someone around. She's good, she makes it sound like a summer camp. Wynonna doesn't like her. 

She clutches a clipboard to her chest, a keen, open expression on her face as she listens to whom Wynonna assumes are the parents. The woman has thick red hair flowing in wide curls over her shoulders and Wynonna can hear her making comments on how beautifully maintained the building and gardens are and how it would be a perfect place to rest up. A stern faced man nods along beside her. 

Wynonna burps loudly and unapologetically, reaching for another Red Vine. 

The young girl looks over, same red hair as her mother but looks  _ way _ less of a vapid bitch. 

The administration robot spares Wynonna a snide glance and puts a hand on the young girl’s shoulder, who easily withdraws from the touch. 

The tours are different almost each time they happen and she's seen more than her fill since she's been there. This time however, Wynonna can't watch another unwilling young girl be admitted and then forgotten about. She just can’t.    
  
  
  
She wakes some time later from an afternoon nap and stays in bed rather than join anybody else in the rec room. She’s still groggy and she takes the time she needs to come back to planet Earth. Wynonna is mid-lazy stretch when the door to her double room opens.    
  
It throws her when she sees the girl from earlier. She’s never had a roommate before. She doesn’t know that she wants one.    
  
They share awkward, guarded eye contact.    
  
The girl takes in the state of the room with an internal sigh. Nothing is in order.    
  
“What’re you in for?” Wynonna asks as she pushes up into a sitting position. She waits but no response comes. “Unless you're this wing’s newest, youngest cleaner? Kinda scared the last two off,” she says. “Thank God you're here, these toilets don't unblock themselves, you know? Some of those girls are animals.”    
  
Her unexpected visitor looks mortified and a less than subtle disgusted grimace sweeps over her face. Besides that, and a clench of her jaw, she doesn’t react.   
  
“Do you talk?”   
  
“Do you stop?”   
  
Wynonna grins at her success and watches the girl open the door to wheel a suitcase inside. She gasps dramatically. “Jesus H, we're roomies?”

  
The suitcase is tipped on its side and its owner crouches down to unzip it, pulling out some personal effects.  
  
“The name’s Sam. Sam Baker. And you are?” Wynonna encourages.  
  
“You're Wynonna Earp, but nice try.”  
  
Wynonna tries and fails in her attempt not to look taken aback. Her head drops back. “Bitch.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Oh, Nurse Tate got me hit with a bad dose.” Panicked, she paws at her throat and tries to think on her feet to down a full cup of water, imagining it to help stave off the effects. “My sister calls me tonight. I'll be in the fuckin' clouds.”  
  
“Sure you're not?”  
  
“What? Speak up, I can barely hear you with your head in your luggage.”  
  
“Surely not,” the girl says, louder this time.  
  
“Hits me all at once. First I’m a sleepy bitch, then…”  
  
“Paranoid bitch?”  
  
Wynonna picks up the plastic jug next and lifts it to her lips, drinking greedily as long as her lungs will allow her to. “All because I said the iced tea she helped hand out with lunch tasted like her personality. Sour bitch.”  
  
“I’m Nicole,” she finally admits, feeling sorry for the poor girl. “An orderly brought me here. Randy. Said I'd be sharing a room with a 'handful’' called Wynonna Earp. He also said to go to him if, like, I hate you, so.”  
  
“Oh.” Wynonna still appears visibly cautious. “They never put anyone in here with me.”  
  
“Lucky you.”  
  
“I saw you before my afternoon nap.”  
  
“Awkward guided tour? Check.”  
  
“Was that your Mom?”  
  
“That's her.”  
  
“She looks like she's been probed by the aliens a few times. Sure she shouldn't be in here instead?”  
  
“Apparently, I'm the only crazy one in my family.”  
  
Wynonna ignores that. She knows what it’s like for people to write you off as mentally unstable without it being true. “You know, if you hate her for making you come here or she’s a bitch on visiting day I can totally do an Oscar performance of that scene in The Exorcist,” she offers. "Not _that_ one," she says, her hand doing a sharp, stabbing motion between her legs. “But it'll totally freak her out. Does with everyone.”  
  


“Thanks.” Nicole looks over at Wynonna curiously, who sits clutching her belly, now painfully full of candy and water. . “Why don't you lie down or… throw up?”   
  


“Big brain, I like it.”   
  


Nicole has been able to smell something unpleasant since she walked in the room. “What’s that smell?”    
  


“Socks, my bad.” Wynonna shrugs in defense. “It was mixed leisure day yesterday. Had to show the hot new guy who runs this place. Asshole was totally competitive, almost made my peace out on the court. With a name like Dolls, I dunno, I thought I had it in the bag.”   
  


“Dolls?”

  
“I don't know if he was joking, he didn't really… emote. I couldn't tell.” Wynonna smiles faintly. “He'll be here a while, I can break him down. He thinks he's a lizard.”

  
Nicole really, really resented her parents. 

  
“A lizard, really?”

  
“Or did he say a dragon? I forget. Point is, he's a hell of a lot better to look at than most in this place so I don't really care what he thinks he is.”   
  
Wynonna talks and talks, then talks some more. Nicole figures it to be a defense mechanism more than a desire to actually get to know her and even though she’s ridiculous and downright offensive about patients and staff at Redgrave, in some weird way it calms Nicole.    
  
  
  
  
  
Waverly chews on her bottom lip, which is already beginning to feel sore from the amount of times she’s done it. Her eyes follow the doctor out of the room and she has enough decorum to wait until the door closes before she erupts.   
  
“I want a different doctor.”    
  
“Hey,” Dolls tries, his hand moving over her shoulder in an attempt for comfort.    
  
He was the first of the group to hear about Nicole and Wynonna. He’s had more than enough practice at it but it never got any easier hearing that Wynonna was in trouble, that she was found  _ unresponsive  _ at a scene, along with Nicole. It caught him like a sucker punch to the gut and he hadn’t reacted when Jeremy threw his arms around him in a brief show of reassurance.    
  
Thankfully, Doc volunteered to collect Waverly and break the news. It gave Dolls enough time to shake off the shock so that he could be useful.    
  
Even so, seeing the youngest member of their little family crippled with fear nearly undid his progress.   
  
“No, those doctors are  _ crooks _ . Get a real one in here.”   
  
Doc leans against the wall and rubs a hand through his hair. “It has been less than twelve hours, Waverly. Perhaps we should give them time—”   
  
“No offense but your idea of a good doctor is one who can stop a bad case of diarrhea,” Waverly snaps. It makes her feel better for a few beats of her heart, and then her shoulders sag. “Sorry.”   
  
Being woken from sleep to discover her sister and girlfriend had been called out to a scene and were found by EMT and backup unconscious and unresponsive was more than enough to have her on edge. She was trying her best not to take her frustration out on the gang. It was going swimmingly.   
  
There is no knock at the door before Jeremy enters through it, laptop tucked under his arm.    
  
Waverly’s eyes plead with him and his chest tightens. Last time she looked at him like that it took him a long time to begin to be of any help, was almost too late. Jeremy sets his laptop down on one of the food trays and swings it around for them all to see.    
  
It’s the in-car camera footage of the scene.    
  
As they couldn’t strictly prove the incident was Black Badge related, Dolls didn’t have permission to gain access to the video, especially as BBD HQ had gone radio silent. Luckily Jeremy didn’t need permission.    
  
“I zoomed in and lightened it up but this is the best I got,” he says, hitting the enter button.    
  
The angle of the view is horrible for the most part. They see Nicole and Wynonna run across the street and kneel down in between cars, see Wynonna remove her jacket while Nicole kneels beside her. It’s difficult to follow. It feels like they’re missing something.    
  
There isn’t much to look at until Wynonna climbs to her feet and goes for Peacemaker several moments later. They watch it fly away from her and Nicole get up to join her, shots firing. Finally, Nicole rushes to Wynonna’s aid when another figure rushes into the frame, a man, and a luminous blue light expands over the screen to fill it. It’s gone in a moment, along with the culprit, leaving Nicole and Wynonna lying still in the middle of the street.    
  
Waverly’s neck cranes towards the screen. “Who the hell was that?”   
  
Jeremy has a still photograph. He hands it to her and she reluctantly releases Wynonna’s hand to take it from him. It’s far from a crystal clear shot but it’s enough to see that it’s no man at all. With the darkness of night blanketing the scene behind, his features sharp and skin pale like the moon, the redness of his eyes stand out like a flare.    
  
Waverly’s stomach churns. Her other hand remains tight around Nicole’s.    
  
So it’s a revenant they’re dealing with.    
  
Waverly and Wynonna didn’t have a choice in this life, in the curse. It’s been there generations before they were born. But Nicole did. She  _ did  _ have a choice. And she chose to stay and fight, because of her, because she loves her.    
  
It felt like a punch in the throat. 

  
She hands the photograph up to Doc and Dolls for them to study. She quickly gathers from Doc’s expression that he isn’t able to identify the revenant.    
  
“Dolls?” she says, knowing he isn’t exactly the easiest person in the world to read. “Anything?”   
  
“No.” He focuses his attention to Doc. “Heard of anything similar?”   
  
“I have not.”   
  
“So, that’s it?” Waverly asks, stretching her free hand back out towards Wynonna. “A revenant has two potential victims, one being the disarmed  _ heir _ , and he just walks away and leaves them in what definitely  _ isn’t  _ a coma? No way.”   
  
“Agreed.”   
  
“We have their bodies, he has everything else,” she surmises.   
  
“Plausible,” Dolls agrees. “But why? He’s just a revenant, right? With those types of cards, we’d know about him.”   
  
“There are a lot of places to hide in the Triangle,” Jeremy points out to Doc’s agreement.    
  
“Perhaps Purgatory’s newest resident has somebody else to answer to. Somebody he does not want to be on the wrong side of.”   
  
Dolls’ back straightens, voice taking on more of an authoritative tone. “Okay. Doc, you’re with me. We’ll hit the bad side of town. Jeremy, you hit the books.” He looks to Waverly, softening. “What do you want to do?”   
  
Waverly remains hand in hand with both Wynonna and Nicole, sitting between their beds. “I’m not leaving them,” she replies stubbornly. Not yet.

  
Jeremy is prepared for her response. He knows what’s on the line for her. “Thought you might say that. If you can’t come to the books, the books will come to you. They’re in my car.”   
  
It’s unexpectedly thoughtful. It’s the first thing that has brought anything close to a smile on Waverly’s face for hours. “Thanks, Jeremy.”   
  
He exits the room courteously.    
  
The elevator doors haven’t begun to close before a terrible, terrible idea catches him off guard. 

  
“Oh, boy.”

  
  
  
  
  


Nicole stands beside Wynonna in line for breakfast, taking in each tip offered to her with open ears. The noise in the dining hall is buzzing, some of it coming from the more dependently housed patients expressing their distress at one thing or another, the cooks, the scraping of utensils, and everybody's morning chatter above it. There's a slight edge of an echo to it that makes it difficult to concentrate.

Everybody knows what to do and how to act and Nicole, she hasn't got a clue. 

She eyes the breakfast items warily and leans close to Wynonna, voice hushed. “They're kidding, right?” 

“You get used to it.”

Nicole isn't sure what she thinks of Wynonna yet. She hasn't had all that much time to reflect on her roommate, thrust into a new day with the weight of betrayal from her parents still heavy on her chest. She sticks with Wynonna for the simple reason that she's all she's got. 

Eventually getting her turn at the front of the line, Wynonna eyes the breakfast bar with such genuine gleeful indecision that Nicole thinks it can't possibly be real. 

“You know what,” Wynonna abruptly declares, “Give me the works, Jeanie. Full stack with two rashers and a side of hash browns.”

Jeanie Lucado’s eyes are little more than slits as she slaps down loosely scrambled eggs on Wynonna's plate and finishes it with two slabs of dry white toast. 

Wynonna's head bows. “Blessed be.”

Nicole is too frightened to ask for  _ anything  _ and tries valiantly to work a smile to her face as she's given the same, only with more of her icy blue eyes visible. She hurries over to Wynonna at the beverage bar. 

“Who's that?”

“Lucado. She does the spread every morning and afternoon.”

Nicole glances down to her plate, struggling to believe someone was actually paid money to produce it. 

“This her on a good day?” she asks as Wynonna grabs two cups of orange juice for them both and leads them towards her usual table at the back.

Nicole feels a pang of shame as she takes the seat nearest the window, unsure if she could trust somebody from the table behind not to make her uneasy. She's still caught up in her moral dilemma while Wynonna flaunts a carefree smile and tears open a pepper sachet, delicately sprinkling it over her microwaved scrambled eggs. 

“Yeah, look, I know she  _ looks  _ like the wind blew a certain way and her face got stuck but it's legit. Entertainment is key in this shithole and she provides plenty. Total cash cow. Not my fault.”

Nicole doesn't judge. 

She pushes her own eggs around on her plate, eyeing them with caution. “Um… did— did somebody already eat these?” 

Even though Nicole takes great care to speak quietly she can feel the sudden weight of a glare across the hall. She doesn't check to see if Lucado is watching. 

  
  
  
  


Wynonna can’t remember the last time she hasn’t despised a person after spending more than an afternoon with them. So far, despite looking for any reason at all, valid or not, to demand an eviction notice be served, she can’t find one.    
  
In two entire days, she hasn’t found a single thing. 

It was too good to be true, obviously, but enjoying it while it lasted? You’d better believe it. 

She can’t remember the last time an entire Friday wasn’t spent fretting over if she would be allowed to see Waverly the next day for weekly visit day, wound so tightly her shoulders would ache the next morning.

It’s hot outside and she’s taking full advantage, perched on the grass with Nicole beside her. She thinks of the way Waverly will smile and tell her she’s proud of her effort to try and make a friend. It makes her feel lighter.

She hasn’t asked Nicole what she’s in for, not seriously, and Nicole hasn’t asked her either. All Wynonna knows is that Nicole isn’t from town and it feels like the most beautiful clean slate Wynonna has had given to her in a very long time. 

She has halfway decided to vaguely point in Nicole’s direction when Waverly visits tomorrow so that her sister sees the cause of Wynonna’s uncharacteristically good behavior over the past forty-eight hours. 

“I want his hat.” Nicole eyes the older gardener. He’s been there forever but Wynonna can’t recall ever having a conversation with him.

“Doc’s? Good luck with that.”

“Maybe just  _ a  _ hat.”

Wynonna has only ever wanted one thing and that wasn’t it. 

A few of the older male residents have been playing basketball and Nicole finds herself to have only a vague interest in the game, she’s mostly just grateful to be outside in the sun. It’s a glorious day and the sun feels like a healing balm against her skin. 

A wolf-whistle comes from the side of them and Wynonna reacts to the attention instantly without looking. “Fuck off, Carl.”   
  


“Hey, what would you be doing today if you weren’t in here?” Nicole asks. She turns to Wynonna after a moment, catching her staring at the court. Dolls has just taken off his shirt and wiped his face with it. He rubs it over his abs and Wynonna sticks the ends of her fingers in her mouth to produce an impressively loud wolf-whistle.   
  


“Your double standard is gross. Just an observation.”   
  


Wynonna pays her no mind, not when Dolls faces in their direction, clearly out of breath. Her eyes stick to him. “Cool. So I hate to be the one to say it, but dragon dude Dolls is  _ smoking  _ hot.”    
  


He lifts his chin and offers a crooked smile at her. 

“What's my face doing?” Wynonna demands of Nicole, palming her own cheek a second later.    
  


“Blushing.”   
  


“Bullshit.”

Nicole shrugs. “Do you need the hose?”   
  


“His? Maybe,” Wynonna smirks, recovering some of her composure.    
  


Nicole is mortified. “You know what I meant.”   
  


“Come on, you’re telling me you wouldn’t get with that?”   
  


Nicole lifts her eyebrows.    
  


“You’re a bold-faced liar, Haught.”   
  


“I’m a bold-faced lesbian.”   
  


Wynonna’s mouth falls open. She slugs Nicole in the shoulder. “Thanks for telling me!”   
  


Nicole laughs and rubs her shoulder. “I barely know you.”   
  


They both know it’s true but just for a split second it doesn’t feel quite right. For an instant it feels like they’ve been through hell and back with each other. They feel like… kinda like family.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They’re okay. 

Physically, Nicole and Wynonna are fine. 

It’s the only reason Waverly agrees to go home and take a much needed shower while Jeremy pores over the books she hasn’t had time to finish yet. 

A couple of days have passed and it’s almost like they’re asleep. Stats are fine, good even. It crosses her mind once or twice that this could have been an attack gone wrong and the revenant, whoever he is, got scared off by the approaching EMT. 

It’s easy to fall into the comfort of it. 

It’s easy to imagine having to sit and wait; if she’s  _ good _ and patient they’ll come right back to her. 

But this is Purgatory and Waverly has never tried to be anything other than good and pure and light even as the world crashed around her, changing her and it irrevocably. Even during her moments of darkness, Waverly has only ever tried to be good. 

She thinks Nicole is her reward. For everything.

She’s the balm Waverly has always needed, in the way Wynonna could only be to a certain point but no less needed all the same. 

They could both be fine. Technically there was nothing life-threatening wrong with them. But this was Purgatory and a revenant would only leave the heir physically unharmed if his endgame was better. 

This was Purgatory and it was the Earp family, blood or not. You hit one, you hit them all. Hit two… Waverly doesn’t think they have any idea what they’ve done. 

With a check of her watch to see how long she's been gone —not long— she reaches for the light switch and catches one last glimpse of the room she regularly shares with Nicole. 

  
  
  


_ Waverly loves Nicole like this, when she’s almost apart at the seams and all she can do is kiss and grasp at Waverly’s body like it’s the only thing she’ll ever need.  _

_ She loves the feel of Nicole’s bare body stretched out over her, lean and soft in all the right places _ — _ it gets her blood boiling. She loves being spread open for her, for Nicole to be so deep inside of her that she can’t manage more than a low, desperate whine of Nicole’s name before their mouths touch and they kiss in a way that only happens when they are so far gone in each other that kisses are their words. They say I love you. I love you so much. I love you with words that don’t exist yet. I’ll love you forever.  _

_ Waverly could exist in these moments forever. _

_ Nicole’s head touches against the pillow beside Waverly’s head, eyes closed as she echoes Waverly’s groan, using her weight behind each thrust. She knows how close she is, knows how much Waverly needs her, and it ignites her in the most sinful of ways.  _

_ She can’t physically be any deeper inside, not without a little extra help, and it’s still not enough. It never feels like enough.  _

_Waverly’s heart hammers in her chest when she reaches down between their bodies to still Nicole’s hand. It’s not easy._ _God, it’s not easy. Nicole is still inside her, still filling her, and it’s an effort not to push back into her. Nicole makes the stretch so delicious that it’s almost instinct to seek it out when it’s so damn close._

_ Except she doesn’t. Not this time.  _

_ “You okay, baby?” Nicole begins to push up on her other arm, gently pulling her fingers away.  _

_ Waverly’s eyes drift shut at the sensation, swallowing a quiet gasp when Nicole’s hand, slick with her, brushes over her clit. She’s drawn so tightly. She was on the home stretch.  _

_ Waverly covers Nicole’s wrist and leans up to capture her mouth fully, pouring everything she can into it. There’s a beautiful flush to her face and chest and Waverly kisses her again, messily, blood pounding through her body as she moves her tongue over and over Nicole’s, unable to get enough of it, of her.  _

_ Tugging upwards, Waverly tears away from Nicole’s mouth and blindly lowers her mouth over Nicole’s fingers instead.  _

_ She cleans them of every last trace of herself.  _

_ Nicole tears her hand away and moves for Waverly. The kiss is hard and deep and slow and then she moves, dragging her mouth down over Waverly’s breasts where she moves it softly, gentle as her lips and tongue captures each nipple with the kind of wet, warm tenderness that brings a beautiful arch to Waverly’s back every time. _

_ Then Nicole moves lower, no teasing required.  _

  
  
  
  


With Lucado thankfully off-site, Nicole doesn't concern herself worrying over dinner too much. It’s been marginally better than the other two meals of the day and she’s so hungry that she would probably eat even if Lucado was scheduled to work.    
  
Redgrave isn’t what she expected.   
  
She wonders if she is legally obligated to state her small stay at Redgrave on any of her job applications now or in the future, and if it’s something employers will take a chance on. She knows the more likely answer to both of those questions. At least at this point in history.    
  
Nicole wonders if she’ll ever be anywhere close to truly happy.    
  
“What slithered its way up your ass?”   
  
Nicole lifts one shoulder, scooping up a fork of mashed potatoes, peas, and gravy. She chews slowly, cautious of the supposed legendary status of pot roast night.    
  
“Did someone say something?”    
  
“No.”   
  
Wynonna turns in her seat, glaring at the closest pair of possible culprits. “Muzzle your dog Earl, before I put it down.”   
  
Beside him, Carl smirks at the jab. “Why don’t you come a little closer, Earp? Love to show you my bone.”   
  
“Not if you were the last loser on Earth.”   
  
“As long as you’re around…”    
  
Nicole forces down her food, sparing Earl and Carl a glance. “I’m just cold, Wynonna,” she lies.    
  
“Better than turning the AC down, trust me. Some of these pricks really stink.” Wynonna goes back to her meal easily, gathering up a little bit of everything on her plastic knife and fork. Her cheeks protrude as she chews.    
  
She’s right.    
  
Nicole has noticed.    
  
Now that it’s been mentioned again, it’s almost like she can smell it. She can’t quite pinpoint what it is, but it’s offensive and assaulting. “Is that what it is? That smell?”   
  
Wynonna slurps down some water while her mouth is still half-full with her dinner. She swallows hurriedly. “It’s not me or my socks anymore, you bitch.”   
  
Nicole smiles. That wasn’t what she meant, but okay.   
  
“Hey, Wynonna,” someone says from behind, her stance as timid as her voice. “Y’all mind if I sit?”   
  
“Depends. Which Bethany are you today? Not gonna lie, it’s hard to keep up.”   
  
Bethany sits down beside Wynonna hastily. “It’s me, it’s the nice one. You know what they do. I get so confused… I don’t know who I can trust.”   
  
Wynonna has never considered herself a person that somebody could rely on either, so she doesn’t begrudge Bethany for that, and she does vividly remember what it’s like to be on the other end of a needle for no reason at all. She also can’t judge Bethany’s relapses when she gets sick again. Wynonna shouldn’t take any of it personally but sometimes she can’t help but to and needs to remind herself that, while she would like it to, the world doesn’t always revolve around her.   
  
“You cost me my phone call last time you forgot who to trust.”   
  
“I know, I’m so sorry for that. I know how much you love your little sis’. It’s just that doctor —Jack, he gets me all mixed up.”   
  
Wynonna gestures to Bethany’s plate of food. “Alright, whatever. Eat.”

It isn’t the first time Wynonna’s sister has been brought up into conversation. Nicole thinks she must really love her. “What’s her name?”    
  
“Waverly.”   
  
Nicole echoes it. “Pretty.”   
  
“Yeah. Doesn’t match her face.”   
  
Nicole sees the slight turn of Wynonna’s mouth and knows she’s just playing. She considers asking about Waverly to make conversation but that smell hits her again and she’s distracted. It’s foul in a way that makes her eyes water. It’s vaguely chemical but more so rancid in a way that reminds her of rotting fish and vegetation, and something else.   
  
It’s strange though. It should linger. It should stay in the air long enough that everyone is put off their food but it doesn’t. It’s gone in an instant, and it feels like she’s the only one who notices.    
  
Nicole wonders if her parents will visit her tomorrow.    
  
She wonders if she would be allowed to stay in her room if they did show up. She wonders if Wynonna would come through with her offer to make her mother never want to come back again.    
  
Following that, Nicole wonders why there are flying vegetables.    
  
Peas shoot across the table, most of them hitting Wynonna right in the face. Nicole’s lips part in shock, then it happens again with the carrots.    
  
She’s not exactly  _ shocked _ —the food is appalling— but to aim for Wynonna? She thinks they may have a death wish. Either that, or they really are sick and they should perhaps be moved to the locked ward.   
  
The main cause of shock, genuine shock, comes from the way Wynonna doesn’t react.    
  
Bethany shrinks down in her seat, worrying the inside of her cheek.    
  
Wynonna’s hands tighten around her knife and fork, counting to ten in her head. When a fresh attack comes, she allows it. No complaints. She scoops up some more of her dinner and chews calmly, ignoring the way Nicole stares at her like she’s an imposter.    
  
A mixture of mashed potatoes and gravy is thrown at her head and whatever makes contact sticks in her hair. The hall is quiet now, waiting to see her next move.    
  
Earl’s laugh is loud and ugly.    
  
For just one second, Wynonna imagines him to burn on his way to hell.    
  
Carl joins in with Earl and digs his fingers into his dinner for another launch. Nicole raises to her feet and moves around to Wynonna’s shoulder to be the victim of that particular strike. They keep on coming and she stubbornly stays put.    
  
“Come on,” Nicole prompts.   
  
“I haven’t had my chocolate pudding.”   
  
“Mine’s in my top, let’s go.”   
  
  
The trip back to their room is silent and riddled with tension that Nicole knows Wynonna is ignoring on purpose. She won’t allow it any longer.   
  
“What was that about?”   
  
“Nothing.”   
  
Nicole scoffs. “I didn’t get covered in freezer style pot roast and all the under seasoned trimmings to hear bullshit.”   
  
Wynonna’s mouth turns down in a careless shrug. “Who asked you to? I wanted to eat my pudding.”   
  
“Here,” Nicole says, suddenly and uncharacteristically closed off while she tosses the dessert over. “Hope it gives you a stomach cramp.”   
  
Wynonna sighs. “It’s Friday, visiting day is tomorrow. This shit… happens.”   
  
“Then we report it.”   
  
“You think I’d give them the satisfaction? If I react, I don’t get to see Waverly. The story accounts screw me over every time. But if I ignore it, if it goes under the radar, everything’s cool. I’d be in the deep end of crazy if I didn’t see her. She’s the only one who doesn’t think I’m this broken…  _ thing _ .”   
  
“Do you know that for sure? I’ll back you up. I’ll say it was unprovoked.”   
  
Wynonna wants to laugh at the display of naivete. “Justice is for TV and movies, not real life. I’m not putting a visit on the line just for some some assholes. I’ll crush them another time.”   
  
Nicole understands as much as she figures she can being an only child. Her approach softens. “Not always. You can’t let people get away with—”   
  
“It’s Waverly!” Wynonna explodes, eyes hard and defensive. “You don’t know her! If you did, you’d  _ know _ why I can’t and  _ won’t. _ Please don’t be a stubborn ass about this.”   
  
“Wynonna…” Nicole isn’t sure what to say but Wynonna doesn’t want to talk anymore.   
  
“Forget it, it’s cool. Look, we should probably hit the showers before we go crusty.”

Nicole waits a little while before she follows her roommate’s lead, taking a few necessary moments of privacy that she hasn’t had much of lately. She strips off each article of clothing and covers herself with clean shorts and a tank top, slipping her feet into sandals as she reaches for her robe. The air conditioning is still high and she knows she’ll be cold after a shower. 

She steps under the spray of hot water and sighs at the sensation. The water runs down her body and she tips her head forward, allowing the blast of water to hit directly over a knot formed at the base of her neck. It’s good. Eyes closed, she can easily transport herself home. Eyes closed, if only for a moment, she can be anywhere in the world.

Nicole is taken somewhere else, somewhere where she’s kissed under a stream of hot water which suddenly turns ice cold, leaving her a gasping, useless mess with delighted laughter in her ear and a wonderfully soft female body clutching at her. 

It lasts seconds at most but it makes Nicole smile even when she’s out of the shower and rubbing a towel over her damp body, the scene almost feeling like a memory of a memory; real but dangerously close to slipping just out of reach. 

She doesn’t think she’s been kissed in the shower before but she’s certain she wants to be.

Nicole is halfway back to her room by the time she sticks her hands in her robe pocket. Her fingers move over two hard, square items and she takes them out in case they were a  _ gift  _ from Wynonna. Relief comes when she finds two strawberry Starburst; confusion follows shortly after. 

That night Nicole dreams of the same delighted laughter and that smooth, toned body pressed up tight against her. Nicole dreams of kisses she would die for and a sure, practised hand between her legs as hazel eyes stare into her own and a voice she's heard before, a million times probably, urges her to keep her eyes open. 

It's an awkward experience, Nicole finds, to wake up wet in a room you share with somebody you hardly know. 

The darkness provides her with much needed cover to hide. Her body feels coiled tight and she can feel the blush right down to her chest. She blows out a breath and tears the covers back to allow the chill of the AC to cool her body down. 

“Alice."

Nicole rolls her neck to see the other side of the room. Wynonna's breathing is slow and steady. 

Morning arrives slowly and Nicole finds the intercom alarm a most unwelcome intrusion to the hard-won sleep she'd managed to achieve. As much as she would like it to, the alarm does not stop instantly. 

Nicole's eyes feel dry and tight when she eventually peels them open after the noise has died down. 

“Hate that thing.”

“It's a bitch,” Wynonna agrees. “You look… I was gonna say beat, but awful. You look awful, dude.”

“Thanks.” 

Wynonna smirks. “You were moaning last night.”

“Bad dream.”

“Yeah, sounded like the worst.”

“I'm surprised you even heard, all you did was talk in your sleep. Who's Alice?”

Wynonna's chest catches, the name piercing through her with such a force that she almost has to gasp. The skin on her forehead pulls when the name doesn't bring a face to mind. “I don't know.”

  
“Sounded like you did.”

  
“No, wait, I do.” Wynonna swallows, it's on the tip of her tongue. “She's…” 

  
“Here?”

  
“No.” Wynonna doesn't know what possesses her to say it because she doesn't  _ know  _ who Alice is, she can't picture a face or a voice, but it's the right answer, she just knows it. “No, she’s safe.”   
  
From what, Nicole doesn’t ask. She doesn’t press it, she knows Wynonna is telling the truth. Nicole ignores the ghostly pain that swells within her chest, unprepared and bewildered by it. It disappears in a moment, as long as it takes for Wynonna to begin talking about breakfast and finally, finally seeing her sister, and Nicole carries on with her morning, trying desperately to shake off the remnants of her dream.    
  
  


Wynonna checks the clock hanging on the wall across the room and grabs Nicole’s wrist to see her watch in comparison. Waverly is due any minute and she’s been on edge since she finished her breakfast and half of Nicole’s. 

Nicole can’t lie, she’s interested in meeting Wynonna’s sister. If only to appease a curiosity which had started off gentle but had since burgeoned into something much, much more. Wynonna has been on her best behaviour all day, didn’t so much as attempt to get a reaction from Jeanie Lucado in the breakfast line. In all fairness, Wynonna’s lack of mischief rattled Lucado as much as if she had used her best lines. 

No, Wynonna was a different person when her sister was concerned. 

“All I’m saying is chicks would  _ dig  _ me with a tattoo,” Carl says, standing beside Earl and Stevie as they wait for Stevie’s girl to visit.

Wynonna snorts from several tables over. As if a smudge of permanent ink would turn that dim-witted sewer rat into anything more. “Why don't you ask the nurse to give you a tatt the next time she’s shoving a needle into you? Y’know, a ‘w’ on each cheek so that when you bend over your ass can say ‘wow’. Be the most entertaining thing you'll ever say in your life, nutsack.”

Despite her best attempts, however, Wynonna doesn’t always manage to filter her thoughts.

Nurse Tate gasps in the midst of appearing busy, as if personally victimised by the mental image she’s assaulted with. Wynonna would apologise if she liked her even a smidge. Nicole casts an apologetic expression the nurse’s way in case it helps.   
  
It doesn’t.   
  
The time draws nearer and all the patients receiving visits move towards the front of the room to the couches and tables that are there for the visitor’s benefit more than anything. Nicole grabs a pack of cards and tips them out into her hand.    
  
She’s good with cards, rarely loses a hand at whatever she’s playing, and Wynonna has talked her into playing for a phone card, confident she can double hers up and have more freedom to catch up with Waverly during the week.   
  
With nobody stopping by to visit her, Nicole turns the cards over in her hands and begins a practised shuffle. By the time visiting hour is over it’s going to be the most well shuffled deck of cards in history, but she doesn’t care. The cards move in and out of her hands in a cathartic motion without conscious effort. She will have to figure out a way to throw her hand without Wynonna noticing her charity. It wasn’t like Nicole had plans to call home every night, anyway. 

There's a lot of  _ noise  _ during visiting times. 

Nicole tries her best to ignore the shrieks as she watches various patients rush towards their visitor, enjoying a rare moment of seeing so many so happy. 

Nicole seeks out Wynonna in the crowd. 

There is no one in that room who deserves to see their family more than Wynonna, she thinks. Nicole finds her several moments later when most of the patients and their visitors have found a seat and she stands tall, arms wrapped tightly around a smaller girl as they embrace, weight shifting from foot to foot. 

Soft Wynonna is a welcome sight indeed. 

Nicole smiles, hands rhythmically moving cards in and out of them. 

It’s when Wynonna pulls back and cradles each side of her sister’s face that Nicole finally sees her and most of the deck drops to the floor.

Waverly.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

No news is good news.

Waverly is so  _ sick  _ of hearing that.    
  
No news is not good news. No news means she spends another minute wanting to pull her hair out because Nicole and Wynonna continue to lie in their hospital beds in the same position they were in three days ago. It means another minute of pushing away thoughts that she absolutely cannot have in her head without wanting to scream; thoughts like they’ll never come back.    
  
She thought she was at least used to it with Wynonna, the amount of times and ways she’s lost her over the years. As it turns out, she’s not, and she doesn’t think she ever will be. Wynonna is such a part of her now that to lose her would be to lose part of herself.    
  
Waverly remembers the last time Nicole lay in a hospital bed because of her and the Earp curse. She’ll never forget the way fear seized her heart, the sense of sheer helplessness. Since then, she’s moved forward in all of the ways she always dreamed she would in a relationship and truly understands what it means to be —and remain— madly in love, even when things get dark or messy. She’s lost that underlying fear that her love would  _ leave _ or get tired of her, and Waverly knows without hesitation that she would fight until her dying breath to save Nicole, should it ever happen again.    
  
Waverly is light. At least, she tries to be. Always.   
  
She’s felt darkness before in Mictian, knows how it tastes.   
  
The longer she waits for Nicole and Wynonna, the more often a nurse who is only ever trying to help utters  _ no news is good news _ , and the more often Waverly feels a different kind of darkness begin to swell.    
  
She had to leave the hospital.    
  
With a soft kiss to Nicole’s lips and the same to Wynonna’s head, Waverly decides to head back to research central, where Doc and Dolls are due back soon from their latest tactical operation involving beating the snot out of any revenant they can get their hands on.    
  
They’ve listened to the original police call and Jeremy has run it through voice recognition software to see if he’s been around before, to no luck. All they know is that it’s a woman.   
  
Waverly walks through the station without looking at Nicole’s desk. She doesn’t want to see it empty again. She pictures the times she’s walked by before and caught Nicole going over files with concentration creasing the skin between her brows, lips pouting when she’s confused by a detail and blindly reaching for her cup of coffee which is always in the same spot. For a moment the image settles to some deep part of herself that only one person has ever been loved by before, her soul, and it eases the pain some.   
  
For a moment.    
  
Waverly knows something is off the moment she pushes the door to the BBD office open. A container of pens and highlighters scatter across the floor and Jeremy flails around like he’s being attacked by a hellhound. Waverly is used to Jeremy, loves him, but God is she not in the mood.   
  
“Anything?”   
  
Jeremy throws himself to the nearest desk chair, leaning forward on the edge of his seat to be able to set his elbows upon the desk in an attempt to appear somewhat casual. “I— no. Not— not yet. Almost.”   
  
Waverly eyes him quizzically. “What?”   
  
“Maybe?”   
  
“Are you asking me or telling me?”   
  
“Telling you?”   
  
“Jeremy,” Waverly sighs, sounding tired in all of the ways she feels.    
  
His mouth opens but no sound comes from it other than a strange, conflicted groan. He scans her as if checking for any weapons she may be concealing, his eyes flicking to the cabinet where the nearest tranquiliser gun is, almost exactly like a prey animal that’s been backed into a canyon. Finally, Jeremy braces his hands against the desk and pushes off. He ends up a good few feet away.    
  
Waverly almost asks him if he’s been sniffing the marker pens again until she sees a mass of dark hair emerge from under Jeremy’s desk.    
  
The first thing Waverly notices is she’s clearly female. Recognition smooths out the lines on Waverly’s face until anger smothers it.    
  
There, only several strides away, stands Rosita Bustillos.    
  
  


  
  
  


Nicole stares.    
  
Even if she’d like to, she can’t look away.    
  
Her eyes are drawn to Waverly like she’s the only thing that has ever been color, and Nicole is shaken to her very core by the sight alone.    
  
They talk, Waverly and Wynonna do, and their hands wrap around each others atop the small table they’re at as they catch up on all that they have missed, and still all Nicole can do is watch. Waverly smiles, amused by something her sister has said, and it’s  _ light  _ and soft in a way that defies belief at her ever knowing pain even once in her entire life.    
  
Nicole recalls that particular thought effortlessly, like it’s passed through her head a thousand times in gentle astonishment.   
  
“Miss Haught!”   
  
Whatever curious sense of familiarity she’s unceremoniously saddled with, Nicole’s view is obscured by a fast-approaching Nurse Tate even as she leans around her to catch one more glimpse of Wynonna’s sister.    
  
“Miss Haught, who would forget their own head if it wasn’t screwed on? You were supposed to come see me a half hour ago! Here, sweetie.”   
  
Nicole casts her eyes to where Nurse Tate stands expectantly with a cup of water and another containing two round, white pills. “What are those?”   
  
“Something to keep you on track. I’ve heard your first few days have been fantastic.”   
  
“Living the dream.”   
  
“That’s what we like to hear.”   
  
She’s always been one to give a person the benefit of the doubt, especially given a difficult situation, but Nicole can’t deny a feeling in her gut that deems Nurse Tate a bad egg. “I’m not on any medication, I’m here to rest up.”   
  
“You haven’t been doing much of that now, have you? Night staff told me your light was on until pretty late last night. This will just help ease you into a comfortable afternoon snooze, is all. Help you to relax. Lord knows it can’t be easy sharing a room with that…  _ girl _ .”   
  
The verbal jab sets Nicole’s teeth on edge. Aside from a strained beat, there’s a miraculous easy air about her; a politeness to her authority. “I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve been successfully managing my own sleep schedule for a while now.”    
  
“Miss Haught, I will have to insist you take—”   
  
“If medication is prescribed to me, it’s the law to be informed. If it’s a sleeping aid, as you say, it’s elective,” Nicole cuts in evenly. “How many times I gotta say it? Thank you for your concern but I don’t feel like a nap, nurse.”   
  
Waverly’s loud laugh gains her attention and she looks over to see Wynonna’s head now in her hands, stretched out laughing with her sister. She can’t hear what they’re talking about, but it is equally as lovely as it is strange to see Wynonna happy.    
  
Nicole lingers on Waverly.    
  
That laugh… those eyes…    
  
“Why don’t we go see the doctor, hmm? Would that make you feel better?”   
  
The cards still litter the carpet around her feet and despite having no desire to go anywhere with the nurse, Nicole rises to her feet like an obedient child and follows the woman out of the room, eyeing Waverly on her way out. 

It's at the last possible moment that Waverly must feel the ghostly sensation of being admired and casts her eyes upward. Nicole feels her breath catch in a way that only exists in novels and all she can focus on is  _ hazel _ . 

Their eyes lock and there's a part of Nicole that wants to sink into the comfort of it but there's a larger part that is panicked, wondering how much of her expression radiates the feared confusion she feels pricking her skin. 

Waverly, for all intents and purposes, is the girl of her dreams. 

Following Nurse Tate out of the room and passing by scarcely communed corridors, Nicole finds herself so plagued with confusion that by the time they reach an empty office and the door clicks shut, she doesn't hear a lock turn over or see the subtle movement in nurse Tate’s lab coat. 

By the time Nicole feels a sharp scratch at her neck and has sucked in a swift breath at the intrusion, it's too late.

  
  
  
  
  


Waverly’s reaction is instantaneous and Jeremy would almost swear to seeing double as she bolts forward. He steps directly into her path to placate her, explain how all it had taken was for him to explain the situation they were stuck in for Rosita to come, but all his passively-raised hands serve to do is provide purchase for Waverly to leverage him over her shoulder and onto the office floor.    
  
All Waverly can feel is how much her heart broke on Alice’s birthday, how scared and shattered and vulnerable Wynonna was that day, and how all of that had been taken advantage of. Exploited. It all comes rushing back in a wave, rising high before it crashes down upon her and she’s swept up in it. Rather than fight it, Waverly allows herself to be taken away.    
  
She has Rosita’s back pressed up against the nearest wall in seconds, a hand tight at her throat.    
  
“Waverly, you don’t want to do this!”   
  
Waverly doesn’t even look at Jeremy. She thinks that if she looks hard enough she will be able to find a trace of the revenant who had betrayed all of them; Wynonna especially. She thinks she should be able to find something, a flicker of red in Rosita’s eyes, a hint of the duplicitous liar who had fooled them all, but she finds nothing close. It angers her more.   
  
Waverly sees her sister that day, heart broken as she kissed her daughter goodbye. Tears come quickly. “Why not?” Rosita’s eyes are full to the brim with an apology and Waverly’s hand tightens. “She betrayed us.”   
  
“She’s here to help.”   
  
“I’ll drag her over the line myself,” Waverly promises, lowering her voice to conceal the way it shakes. She leans in. “I’ll even record it, give Wynonna a copy for her birthday.”   
  
Jeremy’s hand reaches out tentatively, wrapping around her wrist. “Nicole and Wynonna need her. However much you hate her, you love them more, right?”   
  
They are the magic words.   
  
It’s with some reluctance that Waverly’s hand loosens, though only for as long as it takes for some of the tension in Rosita’s shoulders to leave in a suspiciously relieved breath. Panic seizes her, and in turn she grips harder to the slender throat in her grasp. “What will Wynonna say when she finds out? She’ll think—”   
  
“What, that you’re a good leader? That you did everything you could in order to get her and Nicole back, including putting aside your, uh,  _ clearly  _ very strong personal feelings?”   
  
“No, she’ll think I betrayed her, again. I can’t.”    
  
“She won’t,” he promises.   
  
It doesn’t hold much weight. Nobody knows Wynonna the way she does.    
  
“She’ll never forgive me, not for this.”   
  
“You don’t know that!” Jeremy explodes. “But even if she doesn’t… we’ll have Wynonna back. Her  _ and  _ Nicole. That’s gotta mean more to you.”   
  
Waverly wonders if Doc knows Rosita is here. Given their complicated romantic history coupled with the fact that she intended to steal his child in return for her freedom, she wonders if he would struggle with this decision or make up his mind in as long as it took him to draw his pistol. She doesn’t want to make the wrong decision.    
  
Her instinct is to ask Nicole what she thinks.    
  
They don’t always agree but they’ve learned how to respect differences of opinion and not take it personally. Nicole helps her to have the courage it takes to stick by her choices.    
  
Waverly does, ultimately, acknowledge Rosita’s passive approach to their reunion. Logically, she also knows that if Rosita wanted to get away or  _ hurt  _ her, she could do so easily. Her hand falls away from Rosita’s throat but she offers a glare so fierce that her own eyes could glow red and she wouldn’t be surprised.   
  
Rosita swallows tightly, heeding the silent warning loud and clear. “I get that it’s not going to be easy to trust me, but I want you to know… I think about that day every day.”   
  
Waverly’s arms cross defensively. “So, you’re here to clear your conscience? Make it easier for you to sleep at night?”   
  
“I’m here to help your sister, and your girlfriend. Past or present tense, whatever the situation is these days. Things always changed so fast around here.”   
  
“Present tense,” Waverly confirms stiffly. Something occurs to her and a laugh sticks to the inside of her throat. She finds Jeremy beside her. “You called her?”   
  
Jeremy stands straight. “She’s a walking demon encyclopedia!” he erupts. “And, y’know, more than that, she was always my friend.”   
  
“Jeremy, your dead demon bff almost killed my sister and sold her baby to the highest bidder, so I’m sure you understand my objection to this ass-kissing meeting of coffee and pastries,” Waverly remarks, sounding so reminiscent of her older sister that it takes Jeremy a moment to recover.   
  
“There are no pastries! Please, hear her out. She’s got some ideas.”   
  
Rosita does her best impression of looking like a lamb being taken to slaughter. She looks so wretchedly apologetic that it manages to turn Waverly’s stomach. She thinks of Nicole and Wynonna and it’s too much. She’s on her way out of the office within seconds, the gnawing sensation of guilt following her like a shadow.    
  
Only this time Waverly isn’t sure who it is that she’s betraying.    
  
  
  
  


Wynonna lies on her belly with her head at the foot of the bed as she reads one of the magazines Waverly bought for her,  _ Canadian Biker _ , and pictures a life on the road with no expectations to fail to live up to, no preconceived notions of who she was made by total strangers. Her vision is selfish but she clings to it on the bad days. Picturing Waverly’s face as she leaves always brings Wynonna back down to Earth.    
  
She bites at some sleep-chewed skin on the inside of her lip as she recalls Waverly’s tears hours ago when their time together had to come to an end. No matter how many times she makes Waverly promise to try her best not to get emotional, she does. Wynonna knows her own scare-factor takes a significant dip each time she’s seen rushing back to her room with tears shining in her blue eyes.    
  
As if any of the shit-tickets in that place need to know that Waverly is her only reason for, well, anything.   
  
The magazine page flicks loudly as she licks a finger and swipes roughly at the paper, intent on making as much noise as possible. She braces some of her weight against her wrist and cranes her neck to see the other side of the room where Nicole lies on the bed.    
  
“Nicole,” Wynonna calls.   
  
It’s been hours since Wynonna returned to the room following Waverly’s visit and she found Nicole in much of the same state as she was now; awkwardly sprawled on top of the covers with her clothes and shoes on, mouth parted slightly.    
  
_ She couldn’t possibly be comfortable _ , Wynonna thinks.   
  
She won’t lie, she is disappointed Nicole pulled a disappearing act when it was time for her to meet Waverly. It isn’t the right setting to hold something like that against her though, Wynonna is all too aware that she doesn’t know much about Nicole’s story and, well, she hates people too. Maybe next week Wynonna can ask if Nicole wants to meet her little sister and, should she decline, convince her of all the reasons why she needs to. Waverly is the best.    
  
“Nicole,” Wynonna tries again, louder this time and with the added sound effect of her nails rapping against the metal bed frame. “C’mon, I’m bored. Let’s brainstorm ideas to send stupid Carl and all his loser friends to hell.”   
  
Whatever kind of sleep Nicole is in, it’s deep.    
  
Wynonna goes back to her magazine with a half-hearted attempt at an eye roll. She remembers her first few days being locked up, even if it was a place much worse than Redgrave. She remembers how it took her  _ days  _ to give in and sleep. Wynonna scans over the page she’d left off at, first scanning all of the photographs. Once she’s done reading a touring story about a solo rider either brave or stupid enough to take a chance on the Trans-Labrador Highway, she puts her reading material to one side so as to not get through it all in one day.    
  
Wynonna rises to sit indian style.    
  
“You want my socks in your face, really?”   
  
Any mischievous sparkle in her eyes fades away once she’s on her feet. Her new roommate willingly put herself in the line of fire for her, pelted with food. Instead, Wynonna goes to the closet and returns to shake a blanket out over Nicole’s form before clicking the light off and retiring to bed.    
  
It takes Wynonna some time to fall asleep, at least an hour, and when she wakes it is not naturally. A hard thump pulls her to a wakened state and she frowns in confusion until she turns over and sees an empty bed and a Nicole-shaped lump on the floor.   
  
“Y’okay, sleepy head? Trip over your own feet?”    
  
Nicole groans, her voice coming out slow and tired. “I gotta pee.”   
  
“So, go. Might help if you actually put a light on.”   
  
“No!” Nicole whispers loudly at the suggestion. “Don’t let them see the light.”   
  
A strangled sound of surprise gets stuck in Wynonna’s throat. “Are you tripping?” she asks, joining her on the floor. “Be honest, okay. Judge Judy is not in the building.”   
  
“As if.”   
  
“What?” Wynonna retorts innocently at the hostility. “I can’t have your back if I don’t have the facts.”   
  
Nicole’s head hangs and she inhales slowly and deeply in an attempt to clear the fog in her head. The room spun and her legs had folded beneath her like sticks in thick, sticky mud as soon as she’d attempted to get out of bed. “Nurse Tate got me with something this afternoon. I’m  _ so  _ dizzy, Wynonna, but I really, really need to use the bathroom.”   
  
“She what?”   
  
“Like,  _ really _ , Wynonna.”   
  
“Shit, okay. Alright, come on, let’s try again.” Wynonna is on her feet quickly and offers Nicole both hands to grasp. They adjust their grip and after a strong, swift yank, Nicole is on her feet. Wynonna steadies her for a moment and opens her mouth to ask the first of many questions she has until Nicole begins to fold heavily to the side, leaving Wynonna to catch her before any more damage is done.

“Nope. Okay.”   
  
  
Wynonna's rear takes the brunt of the force it takes to back into the closest restroom with Nicole bundled into the wheelchair she procured in haste. She maneuvers the chair around like a pro, spinning Nicole around to face the stalls and close the door as quickly as possible. 

Nicole cradles her head with one hand, eyes still closed. In hindsight, it may have been better to keep them open while Wynonna raced them through the halls at full speed. She isn't sure if she's going to vomit first or pee. Just as long as it isn't at the same time. 

Wynonna drops a hand to Nicole's shoulder. "Shit, sorry. Please don't toss your cookies. I don't do anything with chunks."

"Need to pee," Nicole declares, struggling to lift both of her feet off the foot rests. Wynonna is applying the brakes and helping before she's finished speaking. 

Together they make it to the closest stall and while Nicole only has half the sense to feel embarrassed, Wynonna isn't oblivious enough to miss the mortified expression flit across her face. 

"The first time Nurse Tate drugged me, I woke up alone in my room. Yeah, peed my bed like a little kid. They wouldn't even change my mattress until I  _ stopped  _ asking them to." The sympathy is a better look on her at the moment. "There, now you have leverage if I ever tell anyone I was the first one to get your pants down in this shit hole."

The drugs have worn off enough to allow Nicole to laugh and emptying her bladder might just be the greatest relief she's ever felt. 

Waiting outside by the sinks, Wynonna wonders what on earth noble newcomer Nicole could have done to warrant Tate's wrath so quickly. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Pressure on her hand pulls Waverly from an unexpected but short-lived reprieve of sleep. She searches Nicole's still face for any sign of consciousness and while the lack of it is no longer a shock, disappointment swells inside her chest as if it were the first time. 

An awkward clearing of a throat from behind her is almost cause for Waverly to give herself whiplash. 

Rosita stands a safe distance back. 

"Cool if I come in?"

A bitter, ill-timed retort is on the tip of Waverly's tongue. She wants so badly to lash out that her teeth chatter with adrenaline and she has to clamp her jaw shut, lest she show any sign of weakness. 

It's for the best that Rosita takes the silence to be an invitation and enters the room properly, not unaware of the glare following her every move despite her eyes falling upon Nicole and Wynonna. 

"Wow." 

_ Credit where due _ , Waverly thinks. Rosita hasn't lost the ability to act as if she cares about any of them at all. 

"Why are you here?" Waverly asks. "Like,  _ here _ ?"

"I didn't know you'd be here, and I didn't think you'd pick up if I called you. I wanted to make sure they were okay."

"Yeah, they're great."

Rosita cringes inwardly at her wording. "I meant safe from…"

"Revenants who want to use my sister's baby as currency?" As tension fills the room, realisation dawns upon Waverly suddenly. 

"We need to work fast. It's only a matter of time before the news breaks to the rest of them, and when it does none of you are safe. Not with Peacemaker out of the fight."

"Jeremy didn't bring you here to play bodyguard."

"No, he didn't."

Waverly relents some. Personal feelings aside, she and the team have very little to go on. If Wynonna was here, Waverly knows her sister would say something about them sailing down shit’s creek at full speed. She wouldn’t be wrong. "So what do you know?"

Rosita isn't stupid enough to pull up a seat. She remains standing, posture rigid. She licks her lips. "Honestly? Not enough." Waverly's glare spurs her on. "Before I died, there were rumours of the Devil's work being conducted a little ways outside of Purgatory but still within the triangle. Some couple who had a natural kinda knack for putting people in a trance before robbing them, making them suggestive to do things they’d never usually do, believe something was happening that wasn’t. There was talk about them being able to mimic anybody who spent time around them. Naturally, that kinda thing garnered attention. A lot of it. Most of it bad. Was only a matter of time before Wyatt came across 'em."

Waverly sits up straighter. "Hypnosis?"

"Amongst a lot of other things, yeah."

"But Wynonna and Nicole weren't robbed, and it was one guy."

"Weren't they?" Rosita challenges the state of them. "Shitty quality included, I saw the video and the photo. It's been close to a hundred years, I don't recognise the guy but that doesn't mean anything. There were so many ‘wanted’ posters back then, it was hard to keep track of."

"But, guy. As in one lone, stupid wolf."

"Something got Nicole and Wynonna's attention before that, right?"

"Yeah," Waverly agrees softly, trying to piece together footage she knew by heart now. She can see Nicole and Wynonna in her head clear as day as they ran towards something, even kneeled on the floor for a few minutes until Wynonna got to her feet and yelled. But it was dark. Too dark to see what they had rushed to. Or who. 

"What if it was her? The wife? She served as the distraction before he shows up as the main attraction. An emotionally vulnerable heir is  _ not _ an undesirable one, Waverly. It's the golden ticket. I'd know," Rosita adds, before Waverly has to. 

"Those people, they were turned into revenants?"

"I know they were shot with Peacemaker, and I know none of the heirs have ever found all of us. There are plenty of places to hide in the Ghost River Triangle. Know that, too."

"Revenants' powers or abilities can originate from their mortal life, and if they knew how to hypnotise people already? Supernaturally charge that and you've got one hell of a weapon."

Rosita nods. "Only one problem with this theory. I have no idea how to find them. Yet."

"Doc."

"Was sitting at the bottom of a well for a lifetime."

Waverly concedes. "But you've told him? Dolls too? We need to find whoever did this before anything else happens."

"Jeremy… insisted on being the one to break the news that I'm back in town after the way you reacted. Figured there was less chance of Doc emptying his pistols into me if I wasn't actually there. Jeremy should have already briefed them. They'll be looking."

Having a plan is in place feels like progress Waverly wasn’t sure they would make. Even if she can’t admit it aloud, she’s grateful. “What are we going to do?”   
  
“I’m gonna be right outside making the most of my unlimited minutes,” Rosita says, pulling her phone from a back pocket. “Might have my enemies, but I’ve always got contacts. As soon as I get a hit, you’ll be the first to know.”   
  
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”   
  
“You’re not. You’re watching over them.”   
  
“Lot of good that’s doing,” Waverly sighs at Rosita’s retreating form. 

  


  
  
  


Nicole has felt strange all day. Even more so than when she found herself being inducted to Redgrave at  _ all _ .    
  
She had been deliberately drugged.    
  
Her body feels fine, save for a painful lump at the back of her neck when she pokes and prods around to find it. There was nothing to steal. Nicole may not be everybody’s taste but she certainly has never done such a stellar job of making an enemy before. No, yesterday wasn’t personal, that much she knows. It had nothing to do with her at all, and more to do with Wynonna.    
  
And Waverly.    
  
The only conclusion Nicole can come up with, however unbelievable, is the Earp sisters.    
  
That’s all she’s got. It doesn’t feel bad. Even inside her own head, the first time she refers to them both together as the Earp sisters is comforting, familiar. In some strange way, it makes Nicole feel safe.    
  
Wynonna has been glued to her side all day like a faithful dog. Not that Nicole would ever say that aloud under any circumstance. It’s nice to feel her protection, especially out in the open where Nurse Tate has been circling around occasionally. Trusting anybody else in this place has never been more of a foreign concept.    
  
Nicole’s eyes cast sideways to watch one of the other nurses pass through the rec room on their way to the infirmary.    
  
“I wanna be sedated,” Wynonna sings softly. She receives a glare for the show of her musical prowess from a member of staff. “Just… getting in the zone,” she explains, rolling her shoulders back. “So juiced for this.” Her feet kick out one at a time for good measure, paint brush in hand. Creative outlet afternoon could suck a big one. She had bigger fish to fry.   
  
“Maybe don’t piss off the nice psychos with the needles?” Nicole suggests from beside her.    
  
“So it definitely wasn’t your singing?”   
  
“Nope.”   
  
“What, then? Everyone here hates me so much that it almost feels personal, but you? You’re… annoying, but great.”   
  
“You don’t know me.”   
  
“You’re annoying,” Wynonna says without missing a beat. “But I know I would pick you for my team every single time.”   
  
Nicole smiles, bemused. “What team?”   
  
Wynonna shrugs her shoulders. Hell if she knows, but she doesn’t take the sentiment back or disbelieve it. No, something tells her that she’d spoken the truth even if it had come out of nowhere.    
  
“You really don't know what you did to piss off Tate so much that she lured you away and stuck you with a needle?”    
  
“I already told you, I was shuffling a deck and then I saw-”    
  
“Waverly.”    
  
“Yeah.”    
  
Wynonna smiles slowly. “Okay, you saw my sister. So what?” In lieu of a response, Nicole’s mouth tightens stubbornly and she goes so far as to add some colour to her otherwise blank canvas. “Before I draw a wang on that board, Nicole, tell me.”    
  
“I don't know how to explain it. I just… saw her and something inside me-”    
  
“What,  _ stirred _ ?” Wynonna frowns. “Earps are hot shit, you'll get used to it.”    
  
“No, not like that. I recognised her like I've been looking for her my whole life. I  _ knew  _ her.”   
  
Wynonna swipes her paintbrush over the corner of her own canvas: a bright green. “Pea soup vomit coming right up.”    
  
“That's when Nurse Tate came over, Wynonna. When I saw your sister. When I… recognised her?”    
  
“I mean, why would she care who you have lady wood for? A visitor, no less.”    
  
“I don't know. This just… it doesn't feel right. This place. Something's off. Don't you feel it?”    
  
“Man, this place has never felt  _ on _ . You get used to it, and the demons running it.” A member of staff walks past them and Wynonna watches him to make sure he has gone when she catches Dolls looking at her. He smiles and she's turning back to her artwork with a small, infuriatingly irrepressible curve of her own lips. God fucking damn him.    
  
Nicole doesn't say any more for a while and Wynonna spends the rest of the session quietly finishing her latest artistic endeavour. By the end of it, it's a group of men outside in a yard, featureless except for a pair of blood red eyes linking them together in trait.   
  
None of it makes any goddamn sense. Not even when it stares her in the face.    
  
As Wynonna takes a step back from her own creation and inspects Nicole’s, confusion and frustration begin to set up shop. Nicole has drawn a family riding in an open-top car. They’re white; man and woman, one girl, one boy. Each child is almost identical to its parent in a bland version of idealism. There’s writing at the bottom.   
  
_ You’ll Never Want To Leave!  _   
  
Wynonna swallows past a lump. “Thought you were from the big, bad city?”   
  
“I am,” Nicole answers without looking, applying pink to the bow in the girl’s hair.    
  
“Well this place is outside of Purgatory, so how do you know my home town sign well enough to paint an almost  _ exact  _ replica?”   
  


Nicole lowers her brush and they regard each other with mirroring confusion.    
  
“I’m telling you,” Nicole starts. The rest of her sentence gets stuck somewhere in her throat.    
  
Wynonna is as vocal as she is reactive: her eyes widen almost comically large prior to an audible gag. “Dude!”   
  
“You finally smell that?”   
  
“Mama Olive’s c-cookin’ up a feast again, huh?” Wynonna says loudly, aware of several unwanted pairs of eyes on her. “Can’t wait.”    
  
Nicole inhales through her nose. It makes her eyes water. “Please tell me that is not actually our food.”   
  
“If it was, it’d be pretty  _ fakakte _ . No, it’s…” Wynonna braces herself for another whiff. “Rotten eggs, at best?”   
  
“Yes!” Nicole’s head tips back, relief at last. It doesn’t seem like anybody else can smell it other than those two. It was the same rotten stench she had smelled in the cafeteria and their room. “Yeah, but also, like… I wanna say ammonia?”   
  
Wynonna nods, blowing the offensive smell out of her nostrils and covering them with her finger tips. “Your Dad ever fish?”   
  
“No.”   
  
“Mine did. That smell is literally like shoving your face in a tub of bait. You thinking dead body? Rotting corpse stuffed in the air vents? Nurse Tate strikes again, or maybe Mama Olive who does the dinner spreads?” Wynonna’s eyes widen. “Maybe she got Lucado.”   
  
“Smells like more than one dead body.”   
  
“How would you know?” Wynonna looks amused.    
  
Nicole isn’t sure, but she knows. “I just do.”   
  
Wynonna chances another whiff and wishes she hadn’t. "The bad smell  _ under  _ the bad smell? Maggot farm.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Telling you, dude. Smells like a dinky set up they used to have on the outskirts of good ol’ Purg. I thought it closed a few years back. Literally every summer, if the wind blew the wrong way?” She feigns a retch.

  
“Which begs the question… why can nobody else smell it?”

  
  
  
  
  
None of it adds up to anywhere close to logical.    
  
Recumbent on her bed, left foot planted on her mattress as her knee serves as a resting post for her right ankle, Nicole has been trying to make some sort of order to the chaos inside of her head. She chews her nails; a bad habit she thought she had outgrown.    
  
“How old are you?” she asks of her roommate.   
  
“Older than you.”   
  
Confusion forms a pout at Nicole’s mouth from Wynonna’s response. “I don’t really… know for sure,” she admits, momentarily dazed from the knowledge. Having her parents there to check her in to Redgrave sits uncomfortably with Nicole. When was the last time she had even spoken to them? Everything has blurred together.   
  
Wynonna almost smiles until she realises that she doesn’t quite remember how old she is either. Before she has the opportunity to swear, Nicole’s joining her on her own bed, a notebook open between them. Nicole clicks the pen into action and writes one word: Waverly. Wynonna rolls her eyes when it’s underlined. Next, Nicole writes Wynonna’s name, the fact that she was drugged the first time she recognised Waverly, how she seems to know Wynonna, that the whole place feels familiar but twisted, sort of like a dream. Nicole adds in the town sign and Wynonna’s ominous artistic creation and finishes her list with  _ bad smell  _ and  _ the worst  _ in parenthesis.   
  
“You’re type A, aren’t you?” Wynonna smirks, even though she’s ignored.    
  
“How old’s Waverly?”    
  
“Fifteen.”   
  
Nicole snorts. “The girl who visited you is  _ not  _ fifteen.”   
  
“I may not know her exact birthday, but she’s fifteen, dude.”   
  
“Then I’m Danny DeVito.”   
  
Wynonna gasps. “I’m a huge fan.” Nicole taps the notebook with her pen impatiently and Wynonna sighs, shrugs. “Fine, maybe she’s sixteen.”   
  
Nicole is looking to the side, taken to another place, another time. “September 8th, ‘95.” She doesn’t have to be looking at Wynonna to know the way she’s being looked at like she has two heads. “I don’t know how I know, I just do. What’s today’s date?”   
  
Wynonna can’t say anything. It feels like she's been in Redgrave so long that it is her normal. The only lifeline she can remember clinging to is Waverly, so for her not to be real? It doesn’t make any kind of sense. Wynonna has never liked how deeply loneliness sinks its teeth into her when her sister isn’t around. It’s paralysing.    
  


Fear hardens Wynonna’s face but not her voice. “Waverly is the only real thing in my life,” she admits. Nicole touches her wrist.

  
“I know.”

  
Composing herself, Wynonna sucks her teeth and clears her throat. “So this whole thing is one big trip?”   
  


“Maybe.”   
  


“And some of us here know each other pretty well?”   
  


“It’s my theory.”   
  


“We both know you’re the brains here, Haught, so get sure.”   
  


Nicole nods. “I need to speak to your sister. Face to face.”   
  


As much as Wynonna would like to agree to that, she isn’t so sure. She knows Waverly and she knows how quickly people throw the C word around in this place, and not even the really bad one. Wynonna wouldn’t care if everybody else in the world thought she was crazy, just as long as Waverly didn’t.    
  
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. I mean— hear me out. Waverly comes to visit her big sister, the one who has actively done everything in her power to not look or sound like a looney tune, and then I ask her to talk to my new roommate who has… sorta convinced me this whole thing is, what? An alternate reality? A bad trip? And thinks they have some connection that defies space and time? Come on.”   
  
“I’m not going to  _ say  _ that!” Nicole hisses.    
  
“Then, what?”   
  
“What are you in for?” Nicole presses. “You make it sound like you’ve been here a while.”   
  
“I have.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
Wynonna despises the blank canvas that she ends up with.    
  
Without a knock to warn them, the door to their room opens and two orderlies walk inside and step aside to reveal Nurse Tate. She smiles stiffly.    
  
“Ladies.”   
  
Wynonna is still reeling. Her stomach churns uncomfortably as she scrambles for an answer to Nicole’s question. She’s at Redgrave for a good reason… a really good one. She just can’t remember what it is.   
  
Nicole’s arm raises slightly in an instinctive attempt of protection. The sight of all three of them there sends adrenaline surging through her body.   
  
“Miss Haught, I’m going to need you to come with me.”   
  
“Like hell she does,” Wynonna says.

“Just for a chat with the doctor. Jack’s a friend, not a foe,” Nurse Tate rattles out quickly in an attempt to assuage. If the hardened line of Nicole’s mouth is any indication, she’s failed. 

“The same one you were taking me to last time? Hate to agree with Wynonna, but I think I’ll sit this one out.”

One of the orderlies step forward and Nicole remembers him from her first day. His name tag reads Randy but it doesn’t fit him quite right. He holds up a painting, one from earlier. If one was to overlook a splodge of misplaced bright green in the bottom corner of the paper, it would be a dark painting indeed. Seven men outside in a yard, all sporting demonic red eyes. Nicole’s heart thumps harder when she looks at one man in particular. A spot on her chest aches.

“Like I said before,” Hetty Tate says, her tone packed with self-righteous superiority. “You were doing so well. You had to go and spoil it?”

Wynonna breaks away from Nicole’s arm and climbs to her feet. She stands tall. “That's mine.”

“Nice try, Earp. Get back on your bed, this doesn't concern you.”

“What, are you as dumb as you look? I said that’s mine, bitch. My autograph is at the bottom.”

“Fellas, if you wouldn’t mind helping Miss Haught along?” Nurse Tate smiles and she knows instantly that it works its way under Wynonna’s skin. 

“Over my dead body.”

Nicole spins and leans in quickly, mouth close to Wynonna’s ear. "Talk to Waverly, Wynonna. Don’t ask me to explain, just trust me." 

Wynonna glares when Randy and Lonnie step forward and take hold of an arm and shoulder each, pulling Nicole away from her. “About  _ what _ ? What do I even say? How will I know?”

“You just will.”

Wynonna points a threatening finger to all three responsible for taking Nicole away. “Hurt her and I swear to God I'll get every fucker in here to riot.”

To talk to Waverly is a pretty broad request. About what? Hey, is this some sort of alternate reality or is it just me and my new friend? While you're at it, can you also explain why I drew seven guys with shirts  _ on _ , glowing red eyes to boot? 

  
The door slams shut behind them and Wynonna sighs heavily. “Shit.”   
  
  
  


  
  
  
  


Waverly is sitting curled up on a chair in the hospital room, empty coffee cups scattered around. Rosita left a while ago to follow up on a lead with a promise to keep in touch. Waverly is going through books as fast as her tired eyes will allow her to. They’re dry, stinging with every blink she makes. She can’t stop reading the same sentence over until she follows the words with her finger, her lips half forming the words as she goes.    
  
A woman walks inside and Waverly’s head lifts from her books for the first time in hours. The action does not come without pain. Waverly’s hand cradles the back of her neck and she leans in to it to work out some of the tension. The other woman smiles at her and she does her best to return a polite one.   
  
“Hi.” Waverly looks to the vital sign cart the nurse is pushing along with her, heading to Nicole’s bed first.    
  
“Hi, honey. Don’t mind me.”   
  
Waverly shakes off the assumption that her reading is more important than Nicole and Wynonna. “Not at all. I’m Waverly. Girlfriend, and sister slash best friend in the world,” she says, pointing to each relevant woman.   
  
The nurse takes Nicole’s blood pressure first. “I heard you’ve barely left their side.”   
  
“It feels wrong…”   
  
“I hear you on that. Been through something similar once or twice in my time.”   
  
Waverly watches the nurse take Nicole’s temperature next. “I’m sorry.”   
  
“Don’t be.”    
  
The thing about hospital rooms is that even when they’re quiet, they’re not. For a moment, neither of them say anything. Waverly watches as Nicole’s heart rate and oxygen saturation are checked and she briefly wonders if the clinical smell of the room will ever not make her nauseous.   
  
“All good,” the nurse murmurs as she heads over to Wynonna’s side of the room. “After this, I’m going to grab an extra pair of hands and we’ll get these two washed up.”   
  
“I’ll do it,” Waverly offers, eager to help in any way.    
  
“Sure? Can’t pay ya.”   
  
Waverly smiles faintly. “It’s fine. I wanna help.” The small mountain of books covering her lap and one of the repurposed bedside tables are a mess and she straightens them out, drops five coffee cups in the nearest trash can and runs a hand through her hair. “To be honest, it’s nice to feel useful… Sorry, I— I think I missed your name.”   
  
“Sarah,” the woman smiles as Waverly moves close. She removes a glove from her hand and extends it in a friendly gesture.    
  
Waverly’s eyes glow a brilliant blue from the moment their skin touches. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, huge thanks to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for checking this over for me after two entire years. Means a lot!


	3. Chapter 3

Waverly is the reason for all of it; that much Nicole knows for sure.

How it all links together is another matter entirely, and one she isn’t certain she wants the answer to. Even if Wynonna does speak to her sister and get things straight, it isn’t going to do Nicole much good being stuck in a tiny room by herself, unable to communicate with anyone.

All it will point towards is another question. One far scarier.    
  
How the hell do they get out of there?   
  
Nicole doesn’t know how many times the wall in front of her face has come and gone out of focus but she continues to stare until her eyes feel hot and irritated, until deep pangs of hunger are nothing but a distant memory.   
  
Nurse Tate hasn’t been back. Randy and Lonnie shoved her inside a small, basic room unceremoniously and left without a single word. There has been nothing since Hetty Tate’s parting words of  _ Jack will be in to see you soon _ , whenever that was. He hasn’t been to see her. Aside from whoever is dropping off several bottles of water a day, there are no visitors.    
  
All the same, Nicole isn’t alone.    
  
Every time she gives in and closes her eyes to soothe the burn or lessen the weight, Waverly is there.    
  


Beneath her eyes, Nicole can see Waverly as alive and vibrant as if she were dancing across her vision in the middle of an ordinary day. The image of it is enough to settle her, calm the terror buzzing across her skin every second she’s locked away. 

_ Waverly’s smile is flat with a contrasting mischievous glint to her eyes as she reaches her non-gloved hand out to switch the radio station in Nicole’s car to something more to suit her mood —something godawful from the nineties, but fun.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Nicole’s hardened stare isn’t nearly as effective as she wants it to be, and neither is the smack to Waverly’s hand, as the light changes, finally giving her permission to drive again. “Turn this shit off.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ As an officer of the law, Nicole’s mere presence demands respect. If she makes a command then you damn well follow it.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Upon the aghast rejection, Waverly’s answering laugh is full-bodied. She spends the rest of the drive home dancing in the passenger seat with one hand strategically placed in front of the radio in case of sabotage.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Nicole only reaches out once, and it isn’t to change the station. She manages to kiss one of Waverly’s knuckles before her hand is being manipulated to dance along with its partner. Headlights shine bright across Waverly’s face as she sings along and Nicole wonders how the hell she ever got so lucky.  _

As is becoming the norm now, before the memory has even faded, Nicole hears the screams begin. This time her punishment for thinking of Waverly comes in the form of hearing the haunting wails from whomever is stuck in the ward with her; violent, howling screams that seep under the door, through the vents, even the cracks in the walls until they're under her skin. Eventually, they make her fold into herself.    
  
Nicole wonders how long it’s going to take for her to scream, too. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It shouldn’t feel weird without Nicole, but it does.    
  
It shouldn’t feel like it’s the first time Wynonna has truly been alone in Redgrave, but it does.    
  
In the privacy of her room, Wynonna has the luxury of losing her shit in any way she sees fit. Outside of it is a different matter entirely. Hour by hour is packed with her doing the utmost to keep things as normal as she remembers them to be. She follows her schedule, has a verbal dance with the shitheads who bait her just enough to appear normal; enough to keep the only privilege she truly cares about: Waverly.    
  
She keeps Nicole’s list in the back pocket of her jeans and adds her own hunches to it.    
  
Time feels disjointed.    
  
Visits are always once per week and Wynonna could  _ swear  _ she just saw her baby sister a couple of days ago, yet she finds Waverly in her arms as they embrace tightly. Other visitors surround them, and Wynonna pulls Waverly along by her hand to sit at a table furthest away from prying eyes. Seeing Waverly again reminds her of the comfort of a warm hug after a terrible dream as a child. Wynonna can’t release her hand but thankfully Waverly cradles it with both of hers.    
  
“Oh baby girl, I am happy to see you,” Wynonna sighs. “We gotta talk.”   
  
“What is it?”   
  
“Is this real?” Never one to beat around the bush, Wynonna just comes out with it.   
  
Waverly takes a second to process it, then she smiles, applying a brief squeeze to Wynonna’s hand. “Is  _ this  _ real?”   
  
“I’m serious.”   
  
“So am I,” Waverly counters. “What’s goin’ on?”    
  
She looks so damn sincere and Wynonna feels something akin to heartbreak. Her eyes feel hot with it and she lifts Waverly’s hands, presses her head against them. “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.”   
  
“Wynonna.”   
  
“This doesn’t feel real,” Wynonna confesses in a display of bravery she feels worlds away from. The silence that follows is not unexpected, but the way in which Waverly pulls away from her is. “I’m sorry,” she says. Disappointing her feels as deplorable as ever. “God, I’m sorry.”   
  
“Please don’t say that,” Waverly pleads with a subtle turn of her head to make sure nobody heard. “Please.”   
  
“Why am I here?” The abruptness of the question looks to throw her, so Wynonna presses on. “Why am I here, Waves? At Redgrave?”   
  
“You know why.”   
  
“No, I don’t. It’s… it’s fuzzy. I can’t— I don’t remember. I don’t even know how  _ long  _ I’ve been here. What did I do?”   
  
Waverly looks up to her eyes and they’re brimming with unshed tears, heavy with pain. “You’re scaring me.”   
  
“This place scares me!” Wynonna hisses. “You have to help me. Get me out of here, Waves, I’m begging you. I am  _ losing  _ it.” She’s getting carried away and she knows it. The panic ebbs long enough for a rational though to filter through. “Nicole.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“They took her. They just… took her.” Wynonna watches closely for the barest hint of recognition to flash across Waverly’s face but it doesn’t come. Hearing Nicole’s name spoken aloud to Waverly feels familiar. Far too familiar.    
  
In a show of comfort, Waverly’s hand once again finds Wynonna’s. “Maybe that was for the best,” she says carefully. “You were doing so good, Wynonna. The progress you were making. I was so proud of you.”   
  
“I’m just scared. I’m so scared, and I don’t know what to think or who to trust.” Wynonna hides her face from any of the other patients who may be watching her. “Waverly, I can’t do this.”   
  
“I’m not saying it’s gonna be okay…”    
  
Wynonna knows Waverly is searching for the right words to say and a memory comes, like deja vu as soon as the words leave her mouth. “You’re just saying you’re here,” she finishes, and it’s like a fog clearing. For just a moment, she sees a different Waverly in front of her. A version so real and true and  _ missing  _ that with her next breath she’s stumbling away from the table in search of fresh air.    
  


Waverly calls after her and Wynonna forces herself to ignore it. It’s a trick. A trap. Whoever…  _ what _ ever that is, it isn’t her sister.    
  
It’s the last straw and Wynonna is so desperate to get outside and gain the limited freedom she’s afforded in this place that she can’t see straight. A surprised sound leaves her mouth when she shoulder checks someone. The force of it sends her off balance until a strong hand settles around her waist.    
  
It’s Doc, the quiet gardener who always tips his hat at her whenever she catches his eye.   
  
“Careful there, darlin’.”   
  
Everything slows down for a moment. All of the chaos, all of the noise. Wynonna looks into his blue eyes and memories attack her like a physical force, constant and unmerciful and true. In the midst of it all, Alice is the one who breaks through. Alice is who she’s fighting for. To break the damn Earp curse, kill the revenants, Bulshar. To keep her baby sister safe.    
  
Wynonna remembers Nicole. She remembers the call they attended, the woman who died.    
  
Finally, she remembers the revenant responsible for it all. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
Waverly is in the hospital room with Nicole and Wynonna’s physical bodies and in less time than it takes to blink her eyes, she isn’t.    
  
She stands in the middle of an unfamiliar twin room and scarcely has the chance to organise her thoughts into some sort of order when the door is flung open and slammed shut in a clear display of frustration.    
  
“Fuck!”   
  
Waverly’s heart leaps at the sight of her sister, however angry she appears to be. As Waverly moves towards her on autopilot, she sees the shock register upon Wynonna’s face. Before Waverly can reach her, or indeed say anything at all, Wynonna’s got an arm and a leg raised protectively as she screams.    
  
Waverly shrinks back. “Wynonna, it’s me!”   
  
“How the hell did you get in here, demon?” Wynonna delivers her best glare. Grown men have been bested by it.    
  
“Demon?”   
  
“You think that just because you’re wearing my sister’s face I won’t hurt you? Didn’t you get the memo of what happened to Willa?”   
  
Risking bodily harm, as soon as Wynonna lowers her foot back to the floor Waverly steps forward and reaches out. In reality it may have only been days since she’s last interacted with her, but it sure feels like a hell of a lot longer. Wynonna stiffens as soon as she makes contact but Waverly doesn’t care. She doesn’t care because the relief of it is so much that it’s spilling down her cheeks. “Wynonna.”   
  
“You’re not her,” Wynonna says, unsteady like she’s trying to convince herself. Waverly notes that Wynonna doesn’t try to push her away or twist out of the embrace, not even when she kisses her cheek.    
  
“Where’s Nicole?” Waverly asks, drawing back enough to look into Wynonna’s eyes. Their gaze is held for a long moment and she sees the recognition in them then, and the palpable relief which claws at her own throat.    
  
“How the fuck are you here?” Wynonna explodes, unsure what her emotions are doing. Her eyes are wet. “Huh?”   
  
Waverly winces. “Long story. I’m gonna need to give you the abridged version.”   
  
“Great, I love bridges.”   
  
“Where’s Nicole, is she okay?”    
  
“Waves, the bridge!”   
  
“Ah, you were both attacked by a revenant.” The look Wynonna delivers prompts her to divulge a little more. “We’re working on it; getting you both back. Thanks to some… really unexpected help, we have a good lead.”   
  
“How are you  _ here _ ?”   
  
“Oh, I was attacked.” Waverly smiles to diffuse the tension. “I think. But the good news—”   
  
“There’s good news?”   
  
“It’s just mind control. Physically, you’re both okay. You’re safe. Just have to figure out a way to snap you and Nicole out of it.” Waverly likes how much it sounds as though she has her shit together. The natural optimist in her is clearly having a field day. Her brows furrow all of a sudden. “Wynonna, where is my girlfriend?”   
  
Wynonna looks at Waverly like she has two heads. “To snap me and  _ Nicole  _ out of it? Hate to break it to you baby girl, but you’re here too.”   
  
“Your hospital room— the hospital in general has a smell.”   
  
“Right…”   
  
“I can still smell it.”   
  
Wynonna’s fingers prod Waverly’s scalp. “Did you hit your head, maniac?”   
  
“I’m still there, Wynonna. I think I’m between both times,” Waverly explains. “I was thinking of you when I went to shake her hand. I think that’s why I ended up here, with you.”   
  
“Shake  _ whose  _ hand?”    
  
“Sarah’s. The nurse.” Her head inclines. “Probably not a nurse.”   
  
_ Sarah.  _ The woman who died in the street? No, it looks more like the bitch who tricked her and Nicole in the first place.    
  


“I’ll kill her.”   
  
Waverly nods. “I’m getting you both out of this place and I totally have questions for you in a sec’ but, first, Nicole. Where is she?” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It takes longer than Waverly likes.    
  
Even with Nicole being the only thing occupying her mind, it’s harder to reach her. The time between Wynonna explaining what happened with Nicole and actually reaching her is spent between. She was no longer with Wynonna but was not back in her own body, either.    
  
There are screams first; deep, visceral sounds of terror.    
  
She’s never heard anything like it. They come from all around her, so loudly that they feel like they’re coming from inside her head somehow. Metal clanging and chanting accompany the cacophony, and she knows there would have been a time where her reaction would be to shrink away from it, to cover her ears and make herself as small as possible.    
  
Not this time.    
  
This time Waverly resists it. Rises to it. Because there is no other choice.    
  
A room appears in another blink of an eye.    
  
It’s smaller than Wynonna’s room, much smaller. With one glaring difference.    
  
Nicole.    
  
It all turns to background noise the moment Waverly catches sight of her. Nicole is lying on the bed facing away from her and without considering how a sudden, silent appearance in a locked room might negatively affect a person, she’s rushing to her, eager to touch her anywhere she can.    
  
Nicole barely reacts.    
  
Perching on the edge of the bed, Waverly smooths one hand down Nicole’s arm, the other sweeping some hair out of her eyes. “Are you okay?” Nicole appears as normal except for a dullness present in her eyes as she turns towards her. It’s new. “Nicole,” Waverly prompts after a moment.   
  
“Now I’m allowed to see you?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“What’s it gonna cost me this time?”   
  
“We don’t have time for this,” Waverly says as kindly as she can. “You’ve been rev-bombed.”    
  
“Huh?”   
  
“Are you okay, sweetie? You look—”   
  
“I’m tripping,” Nicole surmises. “But she didn’t get me with a needle this time, and there’s been no food…” She focuses on a spot high on the wall. “The vents. Wynonna talked to you and now you know that  _ we  _ know, so you’re tryin’ to trick me.”   
  
“Baby, no.”   
  
The sympathy pours off of Waverly palpably and something snaps inside of Nicole. “Don’t call me that.”   
  
“But—”   
  
“None of this is real,” Nicole says, even though she can feel the warmth of Waverly’s hand through the material of her top. Despite being able to smell faded perfume. “And as soon as Wynonna figures out a way to get us out of here you’re finished, man. It’s over.”   
  
Waverly leans closer. “You don’t think I’m real?”   
  
“You’re a projection of someone I  _ know _ , someone who must be so much a part of me that all it took was to see her face and I knew this place was wrong. I don’t know how… but I’m gonna figure it out.”   
  
“My smart girl,” Waverly sighs proudly. “Always thinking ahead.”   
  
Nicole tries to move away, though there isn’t much space to back up on. Her shoulder jams against the wall. “You’re trying to trick me. Not gonna happen. You got a needle there,  _ Waverly _ ? Want me to tell you where you can shove it?”   
  
“Nicole!”    
  
The scandalised way in which Waverly says her name is painfully familiar. The determined, stubborn fire in her eyes, it’s enough to give Nicole pause. Enough to shut her up.   
  
“You know me,” Waverly says. Nicole’s head shakes just barely in response so Waverly perseveres, softening her voice. “You know me in a way that nobody has ever… Whatever has happened in here, it’s not real. If you’ve seen me and I haven’t reacted to you? It’s not real. There isn’t a single,  _ real _ universe where you don’t set my soul on fire.”    
  
“Ah.” Nicole grimaces, despising the tears in her eyes. She lays flat on her back all of a sudden, as if she isn’t going to continue the conversation any longer. “Wynonna needs me for this, I’m not— I’m not getting sucked into your shit.”   
  
Waverly sighs as she maneuvers herself onto the bed, hovering over Nicole. “Let me show you.”

Nicole’s next breaths are shallow. “I swear to God…” The threat is clear but Waverly is moving closer and closer. Nicole can feel her breath upon her lips.    
  
“Tell me to stop,” Waverly tells her softly, waiting a moment for such a demand. When it doesn’t come, she leans down without hesitation.    
  
Waverly’s mouth is soft and warm and applies just the right amount of pressure that Nicole likes. Something clenches in Nicole’s belly when Waverly goes to pull away, like she was considering chasing after those soft lips before they left. Her heart thuds heavy in her chest, erratic for some godforsaken reason. She notices the colour on Waverly’s mouth, wonders if any of it has transferred to her own, and licks at her lips. There’s a slight almost plastic taste of lipstick on her tongue and she makes the mistake of looking into Waverly’s eyes.    
  
The next thing she knows, Waverly’s thighs are spread over her own and she’s a willing participant in another kiss. It’s heated almost right from the start and seamless in a way that comes only with practice.    
  
The more she kisses her, the more Nicole doesn’t want her to stop. The needy grab at her neck and the silky sensation of Waverly’s tongue against her own sends a thrill rushing through Nicole’s body. Of their own accord, her hands migrate to the swell of Waverly’s rear to pull her closer.    
  
Waverly appears differently in her head.    
  
For just a moment she’s in a soaking wet camisole, smiling in a way that makes Nicole’s chest ache.    
  
It goes toe to toe with her doubts, and evicerates them.    
  
That’s all she needs for a wave of memories to follow.    
  
Waverly finishes with a soft, loving press of her lips. She stays close, afraid to break away from the moment they’ve just shared.    
  
“You couldn’t have just opened with that?” Nicole asks softly, opening her eyes to a beaming smile.    
  
“If there’s a next time, totally.”   
  
Their moment of reprieve is brief. Nicole gasps as they both move to sit upright. “You’re here! How are you here?”   
  
“You and Wynonna were attacked. Some revenant with a blue orb trick,” Waverly explains. “I’m pretty sure I’ve just been attacked too. Just in time, huh?”   
  
Nicole’s head inclines thoughtfully. “Just in time for what?”   
  
“To save you, silly.”   
  
“Baby, I’m pretty sure you being here means that we’re  _ screwed _ .”   
  
Waverly can’t resist a quick kiss to Nicole’s grumpy face. “Not yet. No time to explain but trust me when I say I don’t think I’m stuck here. Think of it as knowing when you’re in a dream,” she does her best to explain. “But I need your help.”   
  
“Anything.”   
  
“We know who did this. Your bodies are fine, kinda like they’re sleeping. But you’re clearly in some sort of reality that he’s created. Do you have anything for me to go on? I asked Wynonna, she said something about a smell? Maybe it’s linked to where this revenant’s holed up.”   
  
“Yeah! Like fishing bait or a body. It’s just sometimes. It could be nothing.”   
  
“Or it could be everything.” Waverly nods, her mind racing to a shop she can hit up in town as a starting point.    
  
“Waves, you said we’re fine, right? Physically?” An affirming nod is given. “What kind of revenant disarms the heir and does nothing to her?” Once she really thinks about it, Nicole can’t stop. “Seriously. For a rev-head, call us collateral damage.”   
  
“Hey,” Waverly grumbles.   
  
“For argument’s sake,” Nicole placates. “But Wynonna? Waverly, in what reality would that ever happen?”   
  
“It wouldn’t.” Waverly’s head tries to keep up with the way her thoughts have begun to race. “It wouldn’t. Not unless…” She swallows thickly. “Unless it wasn’t about her at all.” A scenario passes through her head so ridiculous that it shouldn’t fit, but it does. “You and Wynonna were— affected, taken away from me. The two people I love most in this world. And now I've just been  _ blue da ba dee da ba daa'd _ while totally alone in your hospital room."

Nicole and Wynonna were bait. Waverly is the target. 

Waverly sits back on Nicole's legs. "Shit."

"Wake me up," Nicole demands. "In that room. Hit me, throw a bucket of water over me, whatever it takes."

"Yeah, honey, somehow I don't think that's going to work."   
  
Waverly doesn't have enemies of her own. The people of Purgatory have liked her all of her life. Any foes are linked to Wynonna and the curse, but none of them have taken such an interest in her before. None with powers which explain the current situation. She tells Nicole as much. 

Soulless creatures expressing an interest in Waverly make Nicole think of Tucker Gardner first, then Mictian, followed by a flip book of Revenants she can recall. Typically Waverly isn't the top prize in those confrontations, it's Wynonna. Besides, none of those Revenants were new. A couple weren't even Revenants at all. 

Nicole concludes that thinking of Wynonna must prompt her to think of Shorty's because the next thing she knows, she recalls her and Waverly's last date night. One specific detail stands out.    
  
“Waves, remember our last date?”   
  
First and foremost, Waverly remembers the delicious way it ended. “How could I forget?”   
  
“The  _ actual  _ date,” Nicole says. “Just before I drove us back.”   
  
“Like, walking to the car? I remember my hand in your back pocket because I lost a glove.” It’s a nice memory. “Why?”   
  
“There was a guy getting gas. Blue van. He saw us together and stared at you. Winked at me.” While that wasn’t a new experience for Nicole inside or outside of Purgatory, she recalls the way his eyes had lingered upon Waverly and how it had triggered the protective nature ingrained in her.    
  
Nicole had let go of her hand to press at her lower back and guide her across the street towards where the car was parked, and that was the last time she’d thought about it.    
  
Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps they’ll be able to chalk it up to  _ Purgatory  _ with a shrug. On the off chance that they won’t have that option, Nicole decides it’s worth taking the risk.    
  
“He was looking at you. I mean, enough that it got my attention. What if that was him? What if that was him noticing you for the first time or scoping you out; your routine, loved ones?”   
  
For the most part, Waverly appears doubtful. “Maybe?”   
  
“Have Jeremy look into it,” Nicole says. “Tell him to pull the Esso tapes from that night, see if we can’t get a hit on his plate. Maybe they’re registered locally. Check his payment method with whoever was on the register. As for his face… run it through everything you’ve got. The quality’s probably not great but cross-reference with the cruiser’s footage of when it got us. See if we have ourselves a match.”   
  
Long shot or not, it was a plan.    
  
“Who’s working on it?” Nicole asks.   
  
“The usual gang.” Waverly’s voice has a telling higher pitch to it, one that Nicole sees straight through. She won’t look at her.   
  
“What’s that face?”   
  
Waverly’s guilt only intensifies. “Rosita’s back.” Nicole shifts underneath her and Waverly places a placating hand on her shoulders as she’s almost bucked off. “I know, babe.”   
  
“I’ll kill her.”   
  
“I mean, it’s not the best time? You’re still unconscious. Pretty sure she could take you in a fight, right now.”   
  
A deep line creases above Nicole’s brow. “I don’t care.”   
  
“And while the idea to bring her in  _ definitely  _ wasn’t mine, she’s also… instrumental in the whole ‘getting my two favourite girls back’ operation. I might want Wynonna to put a bullet between her eyes but that doesn’t mean that she should. At least right now. I should probably stop being a bitch…”   
  
“Waves.”   
  
“Trust me. Please.”    
  
Abruptly, Waverly startles at the sound of a loud smash. A growl and grunt of exertion comes next. She knows what it means and she opens her mouth to tell Nicole that she’ll be back, that she would never leave her and Wynonna there, that she  _ loves  _ her, but there isn’t time.    
  
Waverly comes back to her senses on a cold hospital floor.    
  
Closeby, Rosita scrambles against Sarah with an animalistic growl rumbling from her mouth, eyes glowing a fiery red as they fight and push against each other to end up on top.    
  
“Hey!” Waverly cries, armed with nothing but good intentions as she fights to get to her feet. She just about makes it upright and a step forward when an airborne Rosita slams into her. They bounce off a nearby storage cabinet and land in a lump together. 

Waverly is trapped somewhere between shock and assessing if anything hurts, and Rosita is already back on her feet but Sarah has gone.   
  
“You okay?” Rosita asks, annoyed more than anything at herself that she allowed Sarah to escape. “What’d she do to you?”   
  
“Nothing, I’m— peachy.”   
  
“We better call this in.”   
  
“Ya think?” Waverly grouses, checking that Wynonna and Nicole are still very much in the same condition as before. She’ll get them back, whatever it takes. She doesn’t notice Rosie crouching beside her until she’s holding her hand to help her up. Waverly retracts, eyes dangerous and sharp. Words don’t leave her mouth but then she doesn’t really need them to. She vows to do better with her temper next time.

  
  


  
  
  
  
  
It comes without surprise to the gang that Rosita and Waverly are forbidden by the hospital staff to visit Nicole and Wynonna due to the commotion caused by their little ruckus with a demon. They can’t very well contest under the circumstances, and Jeremy is subsequently put on guard duty. Doc and Dolls have taken the past couple of months following Bulshar’s rising to help him with his firearm and hand to hand combat skills, and while Jeremy would agree that neither are the best, he’s confident he will give everything he has to keep them safe. Conveniently, Rosita is also placed on the front line in front of the main hospital entrance in case any demons of the week catch wind of the heir’s current state. Logistically, it’s also the only plan that allows Waverly to get out of that damn room.    
  
Not that it does much good.    
  
Doc and Dolls exchange concerned expressions as Waverly barrels out of the gas station, door slamming against the wall as she goes. They saw the security tape of the man Nicole spoke of in Redgrave, but the reality was that they lived in Purgatory and upgrading to high definition CCTV cameras in a small town overrun by demons just wasn’t worth the extra cost, and thus the grainy images they had of the new revenant in town was a major kick to the teeth. He’d paid cash, untraceable even through a card.    
  
While his license plate is unregistered and his image fails to bring a database hit to work with, all three of them agree it’s the same man who attacked Nicole and Wynonna.    
  
Waverly screams some of her frustration out to the sky.    
  
“She was right there in their hospital room! Our best lead to finding his location and I—”   
  
“Was attacked,” Dolls reasons calmly. “Nicole and Wynonna need you to keep your head in the game, all right. You know them better than anyone, you know they wouldn’t want this. What’s your next move? What else did they say to you?”   
  
Frayed nerves have her digging her nails into cuticles as she thinks of her time with Nicole and Wynonna. “Ah, convincing them I was  _ me  _ took more time than anything… and Wynonna said my ass was hers if I got hurt…” Brows high and eyes wide, she gasps. “Bait.”   
  
“Bait?”   
  
“Like a smell. Fishing bait. And dead body,” she adds.    
  
Doc comes up to the side of her, a sympathetic yet fleeting touch to her shoulder. “We both know how important that could be.”   
  
“Get that, Jeremy?” Dolls says when he hears rapid computer typing in his earpiece.    
  
“Loud and clear,” he confirms. “Waves, we’ve got a hit on a tackle and bait store on Elm.”   
  
Waverly nods as if he can see, mind ticking over. The store on Elm has been run by the same owner since she was in high school. Over the many, many times she tried to impress Champ over the course of their ill-fated romance, she had tagged along on frequent unsuccessful fishing trips. The owner of that store was no revenant. It feels like a waste of time to check it out. The last fishing trip she had accompanied him on took place a couple of summer’s ago.    
  
Her face journeys through a collection of emotions and eventually,  _ finally _ settles on triumph.    
  
“Jeremy, I love you.”   
  
“But I didn’t even give you the address yet.”   
  
  
  
  
  
  
Despite their upbringing and the constant undercurrent of supernatural threat that had been present for as long as Waverly could remember, despite Ward and Willa’s traumatic demise, she can still recall good memories. More to the point, and  _ because  _ of those two, the ones involving Wynonna always shone a little brighter in her mind’s eye. 

One particular day that Waverly looks back on fondly took place when she was eight or nine, Wynonna had surprised her with a whole afternoon together, just the two of them. As much as Waverly had always loved her aunt and uncle, Wynonna was better when it was just the two of them. Free of invisible shackles and the weight of past mistakes.    
  
Waverly can still remember the prickly heat of the sun burning her arms and legs, the puffy, round cheeks she’d had as a small girl stinging under the intensity of it, dirt dusting her skin where she and Wynonna would always stop and sit on the ground by the creek and share a cold bottle of whatever Wynonna could lift from the nearest convenience store; usually branded pop because Wynonna would justify it by saying that nobody would miss the profit of one bottle of the popular stuff.

They are memories Waverly cherishes, even the ones with a gentle summer’s breeze blowing with it the most foul, wretched odour.    
  
Waverly exits the SUV first, swinging her door open before Dolls has a chance to stop completely. She filled Jeremy in on her way over and made him promise not to even think about tracking her phone. Nicole and Wynonna still need protecting.   
  
It’s a location a few miles east of the sheriff’s office, not a generous amount of land with it but enough not to turn a nose up at either. There’s a medium-sized house further up the path but Waverly’s eyes are on an outbuilding long since past its heyday. It appears to be largely demolished or in ruins, only one section of the building remaining structurally. The closer she gets to it, the more she can see the decay of the remaining wood through a combination of time and extreme weather.    
  
For years this place used to function as a small maggot farm. When Waverly was a child, not long after their mother left, Willa used to burst into Waverly’s room at night and interrupt her sobs with a threat to drag Waverly to the farm and leave her there lest she put a sock in it.   
  
It always worked.   
  
Doc and Dolls catch up and have her six, unsure of what it is they’re going to find.

As soon as the door creaks open, Waverly is sure of two things: this ain’t no partially functioning maggot farm anymore, but it does appear to be a dumping ground for three adult bodies all in varying stages of decay. The rotten stench in there nearly brings her to her knees. She turns away from it and covers her mouth from a coughed out gag. Doc and Dolls react more verbally than her. She doesn’t say much of anything for a moment, her mouth has watered abruptly.    
  
“God, I hope this isn’t unrelated,” she mutters as soon as she has stumbled a safe distance away, willing the pre-packaged sandwich she’d had to force down for lunch in the first place to stay there.    
  
“ _ Lord _ ,” Doc comments, muffled by a handkerchief held tightly to his face.    
  
The transformation in Dolls once he spots their foe is instant. He stands tall, face stern. “‘Bout to get a whole lot worse.”    
  
Adrenaline spikes through Waverly the second she sets her sights on Sarah. Her hand itches to slap the look off her face almost instantly. Nicole and Wynonna were lured to the state they’re in because of compassion for something that hadn’t deserved any for years.   
  
“Hello again, sweetheart! The hubs can’t  _ wait  _ to officially meet you,” Sarah says enthusiastically.   
  
Despite her stomach dropping in dread, Waverly feels brave with Doc and Dolls at her side. “What is it with married people wanting me?”   
  
“You know how many humans can break through our magic? Take a wild guess.”   
  
“I’m an Earp.”   
  
A strong voice with a plain accent comes from behind. “Well now, that’s just not true, is it?”   
  


Victor. 

  
As fast as Doc can draw his weapon, it takes less to make it disappear. Handkerchief forgotten to the floor, his moustache quivers while his arm presses against Waverly’s as he sizes up the enemy. His second weapon may be as useless as the first but the devil would have to drag him away from her side.    
  
“You reverse whatever you did to Wynonna and Officer Haught, and we will no longer have ourselves a problem.”   
  
Victor grins like he’s heard a joke. “Heard the rumours about you, John Henry. I don’t recall that we ever met, but I’m just sorry you’re on that side of the fence. Shame Wyatt never slipped and gotcha by accident like this one.”   
  
Rosita saunters up behind Waverly, baseball bat twirling lazily. “Hector, Hector, Hector. Long time no see. Is it Hector? No. Vic! Damn. It’s been a minute.” At Waverly’s confusion, Rosita rolls her eyes. “Never met him personally, just felt like a good entrance. Got a hit from a contact on a possible location and then Jeremy filled me in on your plan, thought I’d swing by.”   
  
“Oh, well, priorities,” Waverly mumbles.    
  
“What do you want from Waverly?” Dolls asks Sarah.   
  
“Everything.”   
  
“I already have a honey, and you… are so not my type.” Waverly thinks of Nicole and Wynonna stuck in that place, of how they could be stuck there forever. Both of them separated. Alone. Scared. It makes her feel like she’s drowning. “Whatever you’ve done to her and my sister, undo it.”   
  
“Why would we do that?”   
  
“Kill you fast?”   
  
“Without Wyatt’s gun?” Sarah throws her head back to laugh. “Victor, how cute is this one?”   
  
“Just precious.”   
  
Wynonna and Nicole have both taught her better than to lose her head, especially so quickly, but her face burns and she feels vulnerable without them both there. Deep-rooted self doubt makes her feel small enough so that all she wants to do is lash out against it, against whomever dares to question her character after everything she’s overcome. She takes exactly one step forward and then she can’t, as if her limbs are not under her control, and neither Sarah or Victor have spoken or moved their hands. They smile as Waverly struggles.   
  
“You know, you’d make a fine law woman. Following those bread crumbs of a  _ bad smell _ and it leads you right to us? I mean, we  _ hoped _ … but for it to work out? Inspiring.”   
  
Without much thought put into it, Doc charges forward and draws back to take a swing at Victor in retaliation. Before he can inflict any damage, Doc’s body is sent hurtling through the air and crashes through one of the decayed wooden walls of the outhouse. He doesn’t get back up.   
  
Not dissimilar to a fluke, Waverly can move freely once again.    
  
The remaining chaos unfolds seamlessly: two unearthly, animalistic growls from either side of her signalling a retaliation attack, then a blinding blue illumination. Waverly holds her hand up against the power of it, shielding her eyes. She feels the burn of shame when the heavy, unexpected weight of first Rosita and then Dolls folding in on her causes Waverly to jump away, so as to not get taken along with them. They drop to the ground in unison and she remains on her feet, mouth agape, wondering what her chances are of running to the car and locking the doors without getting hurt. 

The only weapon she has is the baseball bat, which has clattered to the ground somewhere beneath Dolls. Waverly sees where Rosita was going with it; if it wasn’t metal, maybe the revenant wouldn’t be able to manipulate it.    
  
Sarah and Victor begin to circle Waverly like prey.    
  
“Now why do you think is it that you haven’t folded like a stack o’ cards like these two, huh?” Victor says, his wife smirking.   
  
“Or how you broke free back at the hospital?” Sarah adds.   
  
Waverly allows the fire in her eyes to do the talking, unsure of how to respond.    
  
Victor watches her closely. “You truly have no idea, do you? How special you are?” He inhales steadily through his nose. “How rare.”   
  
“That’s Wynonna,” Waverly dismisses. “I’m just Waverly.”   
  
Sarah smirks. “Please, there is nothing ‘just’ about you. Even without your… uniqueness, we’ve spent days with your sister and that girlfriend of yours, rummaging through  _ all  _ those memories. The way they both love you? While inspiring, also really fucking inconvenient. Not to mention our time together in the hospital, however soon it was cut short.”   
  
“Come now, my love,” Victor soothes.   
  
“You’re right. Sorry, I’m calm.”   
  
“Why did you take them?” Waverly needs to know. “Why not just…”   
  
“Without hope of getting them back, how else could we lure you in? First it was just going to be your honey bun, then we watched you for a while, saw you with your sister. That bond?” Sarah whistles. “Then when we saw Peacemaker? Jesus. Now, the stars really did align, I’ll tell ya that. Sister of the  _ heir _ ? Man, we couldn’t write this. Wynonna just so happened to attend that noise disturbance call out. We had another plan for her, it just saved us the trouble.”   
  
“I don’t know what you think you know—”   
  
“The energy you’re radiating right now,” Sarah sighs. “I love my husband, but goddamn. My knees are almost weak.”   
  
Victor’s mouth quirks in agreement. “Heard of your type of power once before but, you know, just never quite got my hands on it. I felt it the second I saw you walking with your woman. Couldn’t help but stare atcha.”   
  
“What power?” Waverly snaps. “I have  _ no  _ idea what you’re talking about.”   
  
“You will.”   
  
“Cryptic much?” Much to her dismay, Victor merely smiles.    
  
“Unwrapping a present is my favourite part,” he says.   
  
“So you followed me that first time you saw me?” Waverly asks, trying to make sense of the information overload. That doesn’t fit though because she would have  _ known _ , Nicole would have known. Wynonna would have known. There was no evidence of it from the security tape.    
  
“No. Once we catch onto a scent like yours, let’s just say it’s easy to keep track of.”

  
“You’re full of shit,” Waverly spits out, losing grip on one of the last remaining shreds of discipline.   
  
“It’s been a fun ride with your dearest,” Victor continues. “Picking our way through all those memories. All that pain? You remember Jack, right? The revenant who succeeded in killing officer Haught for a quick minute. Did you know that some nights he dances through her mind like he’s still here, that sometimes when it’s just cold and dark enough, she feels a pain in her chest and has to reach for you to make it stop? Or how about your sister,” he smiles. “Jack made a lasting impression there, huh? Thank God for alcohol binges and, well, shall we say natural urges to take the edge off of that particular type of trauma. Almost got a real special baby outta that one.”   
  
Waverly feels her traitorous body begin to shake.    
  
“Alice Michelle,” Sarah whispers from behind, and Waverly goes still.    
  
Victor laughs, clearly pleased with the reaction they’ve garnered. “You should see the look on your face.”   
  
“We know where she is.”   
  
“You’re bluffing,” Waverly dismisses.    
  
“You know, I’ll bet dear old Augusta is spoiling that girl the way she spoiled you.”   
  
Alone and feeling so very much out of her depth, Waverly begins to cry.   
  
“See, Nicole and Wynonna don’t have to believe their reality is real to be stuck there. It’s fun to watch them try to figure a way out. We could even bring the heir’s body right here and have her lie there like a sack of potatoes while we kill her daughter right in front of her.”   
  
“You’re still revenant scum,” Waverly says. “No matter what you do, you’re not getting Alice. She’s outside of the Ghost River Triangle.”   
  
“Wanna know one of our party tricks? I forget who we stole it off— we can make you do anything we want. We can make anybody do whatever we want.” Victor shakes his head to the side. “Okay,  _ aside  _ from you. Any one of these idiots, anyone in the triangle, think of them as our personal puppets. The only reason we have remained undetected is an  _ award-winning  _ display of self-control. Well, that, and Robert’s brand of drama. We never wanted anything to do with that. But now that Bulshar has risen? No time to waste. Felt his power all the way at the edge of the triangle, sweetness, and we have waited for your kind too long to let that egotistical snake steal it for his own party.   
  
See, we’ve stayed out of everybody’s way for so long that an heir’s never gotten to us. All those decades taking whatever power we wanted for ourselves, of living in bodies that don’t age or get sick, well, it makes a fella feel some kinda way. We ain’t scared of Bulshar, we’re grateful. All we want is a way to lessen the power gap in case he gets any ideas. That’s where you come in.”   
  


“And your woman, and the heir, and her baby,” Sarah lists off leisurely. “Let’s turn it up a notch.” From behind, she latches on to Waverly’s shoulders. “To the eavesdropper amongst us: forget what you’re doing and go get me an Earp baby to go.”   
  
“Jeremy, no!” Waverly screams, twisting out of Sarah’s hold. “Stop!”    
  
The blow to Waverly’s stomach bends her in half, folding in on herself. The fear and panic ravish her as she scrambles to find a solution before she’s so useless that she allows Wynonna’s baby to be stolen for a second time. Desperation occupies her enough for there not to be any defense to the following blow to her face. Pain lances hot across her cheek and she goes with the force of it, falling to the ground and rolling to her side to be able to reposition the piece in her ear.    
  
“Jeremy! Jeremy, don’t!”   
  
Sarah advances, cocky and slow befitting to a woman who knows she’s about to win. “Never tasted a baby before; she’ll be a nice appetizer before her mother. Think we’ll take the cop as dessert, and you? You can watch and look back in years to come, knowing you wasted all that untapped power inside of you and allowed this to happen.”   
  
The air itself seems to still around Waverly and her eyes drift shut as something inside of her begins to shift and waken. As inky black as Mictian had ever felt inside of her, the power she harnessed because of it has been unparalleled— until now. It rises in waves, snowballing to a peak. Waverly gasps out, her fingers flexing against the dirt. It feels like she’s holding lightning.    
  
The smirk on Sarah’s face widens. “Here she comes, Victor.”   
  
Waverly’s eyes flutter open; brilliant violet irises with a fiery orange burning hot in the centre. 

Perhaps it was all just bait, but she can’t stop herself now. With an easy flick of her wrist, Sarah’s body folds in on itself as she’s catapulted away. Ignoring Victor entirely, Waverly gradually pushes to her feet and stands tall, stronger than she’s ever felt. Power surges inside of her in search of escape.    
  
Sarah guffaws, thoroughly entertained. The sound of it stokes the fire.    
  
Unadulterated hatred spikes through Waverly and she locks in on Sarah’s gaze, holding her prisoner with the power of it. Sarah’s mouth parts in a soft gasp, a faltering chuckle chasing it. Waverly watches the journey displayed on Sarah’s face a little bit like an outsider, not feeling much of anything until, bit by bit, Sarah begins to shake harder and harder, developing into a full-bodied tremor. A wet sound at the back of her throat is meant to serve as a laugh. Even in the face of temporary death, Sarah still can’t turn it off. The muscle in Waverly’s jaw works over and over again, even to the smell of burning.    
  
Sarah’s form goes rigid, eyes large and open as she burns from the inside out: the first part of her body to collapse into her clothes as a pile of ash.    
  
Waverly isn’t certain if the tremor to her own body is a combination of shock, anger or revulsion, and there isn’t time to decipher it. Victor steps up, awe plastered across his face.    
  
“Oh, my God. You— are everything,” he breathes. “You have no idea what you’ve just given me.” The wonderment of his face is sincere. Waverly’s transformation to the woman who stood before him, unafraid and holy, is incomparable to anything he’s seen in his long life.    
  
He concentrates, eyes gradually changing colour. Victor sinks into the sensation; shoulders drooping in euphoria.   
  
Waverly is only terrified for a second.    
  
Jeremy appears behind Victor and the sequence of him striking upwards, plunging a dagger deep into Victor’s ear happens in slow-motion. Wordlessly, Waverly watches him crumble to the ground and lie there, unmoving.    
  
Her jaw slackens. For a long moment, neither of them can speak.    
  
Jeremy stares at her eyes, transfixed. “Whoa.”   
  
His voice helps to bring her back to herself. Waverly grimaces, points to Victor’s body. “Whoa.”   
  
“ _ Whoa _ ,” Jeremy gasps, gesturing to the pile of ash closest to his best friend.    
  
“How did you…”   
  
“Like I was going to let my friends fight without me,” he says as he pulls a pair of foam earplugs free. “Rosie got a hit on a location. Knew this was where you were headed.”   
  
Dolls and Rosita groan as they begin to stir and come to, and somewhere in the background she hears Doc calling for her. It isn’t the best reaction of a good friend; to have a sudden realisation and run away from the people who have stood by her through thick and thin but that is exactly what happens.    
  
“Guys, come on!”   
  
Because if Dolls and Rosita are awake, then that can only mean one glorious thing.    
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
If Waverly never has to inhale the clinical sterile air of a hospital again, it will still be too soon.    
  
It’s busier when she arrives back there with the rest of the gang, managing to turn up right in the middle of visiting hours and what are clearly busy clinical hours on a weekday. The hastened journey to Wynonna and Nicole’s room is spent with each of her boys taking turns opening doors for her to hurry through and Jeremy remarking his excitement over Waverly’s new powers and what that means for them all going forward.    
  
She’s  _ excited _ , of course. Scared shitless too. But she has no time to dwell on being anything but eager.    
  
In case of security being called, Doc and Dolls come up with a plan to distract the nurses so that Waverly can get into the room but it proves unnecessary when she comes face to face with the final block to her path. Waverly sees Wynonna —dressed— standing near an empty nurses station with a deep scowl on her face as she gazes at a phone.    
  
“Fuckin’ dead. Why don’t you carry a power bank, Miss Survivalist?”   
  
Nicole is perched on a chair behind the desk, a landline phone held to her ear. Her face is the picture of concentration until a nearby door opening grabs her attention. The line rings in her ear and she hears Waverly’s familiar ringtone startup.    
  
Unadulterated relief flows through her at the sight of her girlfriend, safe and well and  _ right there _ . It only intensifies by seeing the rest of their family. She notes that Rosita is nowhere in sight. It’s unquestionably for the best.   
  
Waverly is nothing if not emotional on the best of days, so when big, heavy tears shine bright in her eyes, Nicole feels herself well up as well. She’s on her feet before she knows it, bypassing Wynonna completely in her desire to get to Waverly as soon as possible. Nicole opens her arms wide and has to catch herself from a rough shoulder-check as Wynonna barrels past to gather Waverly up in a tight embrace.    
  
Crushed against her chest, Waverly can do nothing but laugh.    
  
Nicole acknowledges Doc, Dolls, and Jeremy with a grateful smile. Wynonna may have bested her for a hug but Nicole crosses the distance and accepts Waverly’s outstretched hand.    
  
Wynonna pulls back to look at Waverly’s face, squeezes her chin. “God, I love you,” she says, sounding annoyed by it.    
  
Once she decides to release her sister, Wynonna glances between Doc and Dolls. A rare show of uncertainty flickers over her face.    
  
Dolls is first to fill in their silence. “Good to see you awake, Earp.”   
  
Wynonna smiles and knows it’s one that only he brings out of her. As always, nothing is ever that simple and when she locks eyes with Doc she would swear, just for a second, everything else falls away. Her throat is heavy only as long as it takes for Jeremy to launch himself into her arms.    
  
Waverly walks into Nicole’s embrace and tucks her arms inside, allowing Nicole to surround her. In that moment all she wants to do is fold herself as small as possible and exist only in those arms. She could have nothing in the world but as long as she has everyone right here, Waverly knows she’ll be okay.   
  
“Okay, baby?” Nicole’s voice is just for the two of them to hear and Waverly nods into her shoulder and turns her head, tilting it upward. Nicole brushes a kiss to her forehead and then Waverly presses up on her toes to kiss Nicole square on the mouth.    
  
“Hitting pause on this reunion…” Wynonna declares. “Anyone wanna tell me where those two revenant dinks are?”   
  


  
  
  
  


  
  
Nicole stares down to the pile of ash at her feet curiously, Waverly’s hand held tight by her side. “Power of your smize?” she guesses playfully.    
  
“Yeah. Levelled up.”   
  
“Probably gonna have to talk about that.”   
  
“Totally,” Waverly agrees, leaning forward to press their lips together. “Later. The first thing I want to do when we get home is—”   
  
“Shower,” Wynonna blurts from behind them. “And I have dibs, along with the right to use your expensive soap and skin scrub stuff.” It’s meant as a question but comes out otherwise. Luckily Waverly takes it on the chin.    
  
“Scrub away,” Waverly grants. “I’ll be at Nicole’s.”   
  
“Uh, you’re gonna leave me  _ alone _ , dinnerless and vulnerable to attack?”   
  
Nicole cranes her neck. “Oh, I’m cooking first. I’m starving.”   
  
“And when are you ever vulnerable?” Waverly chuckles.   
  
Wynonna gestures wildly to the scene in front of them with her usual dramatic flair. It’s normal and nice and before she knows it, Waverly has joined the boys to call in and report the three dead bodies still in the outhouse, probably the owners of the house and a relative who Sarah and Victor murdered in order to have a place to crash, leaving her and Nicole alone with the revenant remains. Wynonna has pulled up a wooden barrel from beside the barn and is perched up on it, legs dangling free.    
  
Both of them stare, waiting for something to happen.    
  
Wynonna snorts a few minutes later. “Imagine if it was windy and she just blew away.”   
  
Nicole chuckles. It’s a good visual. “Be nice,” she agrees.   
  
Their amusement dies down and Wynonna chews on the inside of her cheek, eyes casting to the ground. “Y’know, of all the people to get stuck in a fake reality with… you weren’t the worst.”   
  
After everything they’ve been through together, it solidifies their complicated relationship for Nicole. She knows this will be a moment to look back on. “Imagine sharing a  _ room _ , though. Like, for real.”   
  
Wynonna recoils, afraid it could be spoken into existence. She’s just been trapped in a different reality, anything was fair game now. “You’d never get the  _ honour _ , officer. I’d be scared to drop a hair on the floor. You probably iron your socks.”   
  
“At least I don’t snore like—”   
  
“Like you let me get any sleep in that place! Waverly,” Wynonna moans, mockingly. “Waverly.”   
  
Nicole laughs loud and unbidden, slugs her in the leg for it.   
  
In front of them, slow and ugly is the process of Sarah and Victor regenerating.    
  
“You’re up.”   
  
Nicole crosses the short distance and turns a baseball bat around in her hand, getting a feel of the weight of it. Beneath her, Sarah’s body begins to take form again, grim sights and smells accompanying the process. Her head and face look like a half inflated pool toy and Nicole decides that’s enough by swinging the bat down against it as hard as she can. Despite being tempted to keep going until her arms burn, Nicole walks back to Wynonna.

Nicole doesn’t take her eyes away from them. “For Waverly?”   
  
“For Waverly,” Wynonna echoes, her left arm hooking over Nicole’s shoulder to join them together in body as she knows they currently are in spirit. Peacemaker sounds twice.    
  
  


  
  


  
Several hours after returning to the homestead, Nicole, Waverly, and Wynonna sit around the kitchen table long after the showers are taken and food eaten to catch each other up on what was missed. Wynonna has been suspiciously quiet for a few minutes, sat slouched in her chair with a half-empty bottle of beer. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.    
  
“Seeing Lucado in a hair net,” Nicole recalls a highlight with a sparkle to her eye. “Wynonna, tell Waves.”   
  
“Lucado was in a hair net,” Wynonna obliges without much enthusiasm.   
  
Waverly smiles anyway. “Kinda miss her. Not the part of her wanting Dolls dead or anything…” She palms Nicole’s thigh casually. “And I can’t believe  _ the  _ Doc Holliday was a quiet little gardener,” she grins. “Ooh, was Mercedes there?”   
  
“No.” Wynonna frowns. It zaps the good energy out of the room and she sighs her frustration. “Sorry, been a few hours since I snapped at anyone. Getting kinda twitchy.”   
  
“I’m sorry, that was— insensitive. It wasn’t like a vacation.”   
  
“ _ But _ ,” Nicole chimes in, “we are all here, together and free. That’s what matters.”   
  
No, it was not a vacation or anything close to it. Redgrave pales in comparison to the institution Wynonna was sent to as a young girl, but the memories have been well and truly triggered thanks to her latest run-in with the revenants. In spite of that, Wynonna still can’t help a slow smile. Nicole won’t ever change, and she’s pretty okay with that. Her eyes flash and she makes a vague grunt of agreement. “And Waverly’s been super charged,” she deflects.   
  
Nicole and Wynonna cheer obnoxiously until Waverly’s shrinking back, red in the cheeks.    
  
“It was probably a fluke.”   
  
“Better not be.”   
  
Nicole’s hand shoots up to her mouth to block the spray radius of beer she just took and Wynonna grins, fingers splayed in the air to garner more attention. “All I’m saying is, it would be nice to take a back seat for a couple of weeks. You and carrot cake can patrol the streets of Purgatory while I enjoy pizza and afternoon naps. Every time they regenerate you can just glare super hard again and voila!”   
  
“Got it all figured out,” Nicole nods.    
  
Waverly’s eyes take on a glazed, faraway look. “I punched her super hard, too. Didn’t even hurt. She flew back.”   
  
Wynonna huffs, amused. “Better curb that jealous tendency then, huh? Or your girlfriend will be arresting you.”   
  
“I don’t have a jealous bone in my body.”   
  
Wynonna shoots up rigid in her chair, eyes glued to Nicole. She’s dismayed to find Nicole pleading the fifth. What a sucker.    
  
“So if you can incinerate with just those googly eyes of yours, how come I’m not a pile of ash by now? I’ve pissed you off enough times over the years.”   
  
Waverly shrugs.    
  
“Queue Haught walking on eggshells for the rest of your lives.”   
  
Nicole smirks and Waverly moves to hold her leg tighter. “All I know is that when it happened I was mad. So mad. I felt like I had lost everything, okay. You guys, Alice, our friends. Myself. And I felt so stupid, like they knew I’d end up there alone and I handed them everything they wanted on a dumb, predictable platter. Which was to steal my power, kill all of you, including Alice, and become bosom buddies with Bulshar.”   
  
“And your… powers— they came outta nowhere?” Nicole asks. “No prior warning?”   
  
“Nothing.”   
  
“Can you feel them now?” Wynonna asks. “Try not to cremate me, but I do want a tan.”   
  
“Maybe test them out, babe. No pressure,” Nicole comments to an ugly sound of feigned amusement from Wynonna.    
  
Waverly takes a long pull from her own beer and a deep breath. “Guys, I’m so, so sorry, I love you both so much, but I had to get you back any way I could.”   
  
Wynonna’s face falls before it hardens. “If you’ve made another deal with a—”   
  
“I worked with Rosita,” Waverly blurts, looking at Nicole for strength because she can’t face the look of betrayal sure to be on her sister’s face. Not again. She races to fill the following strained silence. “I was a bitch,” she says, as if it will help. Reassuringly, Nicole nods to encourage her on. “And I didn’t want her help, I wanted to kill her for what she did. I was  _ going  _ to. Or at least try, and then… then she gave us the first lead and I think she protected me at the hospital when Sarah attacked me and I was able to talk to you guys… She was there at the showdown. I mean, she kinda just lay there on the ground but… she showed up,” Waverly finishes lamely.    
  
Once she’s ready to look at Wynonna she tips forward in her chair and reaches for her hand. “As much as I hate her, I’m always going to love you more. Please don’t think I betrayed you again, I—I did it to get you back. Both of you. I don’t know what I would do if I ever lost you.”

“That’s a lot to process,” Nicole fills in, not wanting to break the moment Waverly and Wynonna are having, but unsure of how fast Wynonna’s mind is racing and if that means an imminent explosion or implosion. “On top of everything else, too much to deal with without some sleep, huh? Maybe you guys can talk in the morning. Clear heads. Nothing to regret.”   
  
Wynonna’s mouth twists in a stubborn effort not to lose her temper. Heat prickles her entire body and she can feel her heart thumping soundly in her chest. As soon as Waverly becomes nothing but a blur, Wynonna blows out a laugh in disbelief. In another shocking turn of events, she finds Nicole’s hand come to rest on her forearm; firm and grounding.    
  
“No more secrets, right Earp?”   
  
“Rosita’s back in town,” Wynonna says, as if Nicole hasn’t been there the whole time.    
  
“Yeah.”   
  
Even Nicole’s calm tone doesn’t work. Wynonna can feel herself spiralling and she pushes to her feet roughly, knocking the table and stumbling in her haste. “She’s back.”   
  
Waverly and Nicole follow suit.    
  
“So are both of you!” Waverly hastens to repeat. “Because of her help. You’re safe, I’m safe! Alice—”   
  
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Wynonna warns. The tears streaked down Waverly’s face only make her feel worse.    
  
“I’m sorry.”

Wynonna ignores her, eyes distant. “She’s in town. Shit. Okay Haught, you’re with me. We gotta—”   
  
Waverly doesn’t bother to look away any more. She’s come this far, might as well go the whole distance. She sounds as defeated as she looks. “She’s gone.”   
  
That bit is news to Nicole but her shock is pushed aside as she steps between them in hopes of calming the situation down. “Guys, I really don’t think now is the time—”   
  
Wynonna looks over Nicole’s shoulder. “You let her go?”   
  
“No!” Waverly shouts back. “I was busy breaking speed limits to get back to the hospital to see if you were okay. She must have slipped off.”   
  
“You hearing this, Haught?”   
  
Nicole’s eyes close. “Guys.”   
  
“And I— I wouldn’t have stopped her.”   
  
Nicole rarely swears around her girlfriend but the second those words leave her lips, she wants to. Wynonna’s laugh is sudden and empty.    
  
“You would have let her go?” Wynonna explodes in disbelief. “Gallop off on her white horse after everything she did?”   
  
Waverly’s eyes are big and apologetic. “Rosita helped me to get you back,” she shrugs. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for that, no line I wouldn’t cross.”   
  
“Yeah, apparently.”   
  
As Wynonna storms off, Nicole wishes she could be in two places at once. Merely human, she lifts her arms as Waverly turns into them with a sob. She can’t fix everything but she can be a good girlfriend. 

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
Some time later, Nicole knocks softly and stands in Wynonna’s doorway waiting to be invited in. After a good cry and helping to clean up after dinner, she and Waverly are heading out to her place for the night, but leaving without a word after what they’ve all been through feels wrong. Nonetheless, Waverly did have to physically push Nicole with her whole body to be the one to approach Wynonna’s room.    
  
“What?” comes flatly from a person-shaped lump under the blankets.   
  
“It’s me,” Nicole says.    
  
“Hi me.”   
  
“Y’okay under there? Can you breathe?”   
  
Wynonna wriggles around until her head is free, hair all over the place. “Waverly send you?”   
  
“You mean did I not volunteer to come in here by myself? My days of being scared of you are over.”   
  
“The walls are thin, jackass.”    
  
Nicole smiles and feels safe enough to walk further inside. She leans against the dresser, eyes Wynonna with the least amount of pity she can manage. “Just wanted to say we’re headed out. I think it’s probably for the best but we wanted to make sure you were okay.”   
  
“Don’t forget protection.”   
  
“Wynonna.”   
  
Wynonna exhales audibly. “What do you want me to say? Look, it’s fine, I called Doc. He’s rounding the boys up for a celebratory drink at Shorty’s. I was only waiting for you two to leave before I emerged from this pit.” The worried expression she receives in return is unwelcomed. “Don’t start, I’ll be home at a decent hour. Track my phone if you don’t believe me.”   
  
There has been more than enough aggro lately for Nicole to add to it, so she relents. “Okay.”   
  
“That it?”   
  
Nicole nods, her bottom lip jutted in thought. “Think so.”   
  
Wynonna appears pleased. “Great. Bye.”   
  
“I’d pick you for my team, too,” Nicole says gently, eyes careful.    
  
  
“A gay thing?”    
  
Her eyes roll then. “I’m here, okay? Whether you like it or not.” As she turns to leave, Wynonna calls out.    
  
“I might not want to see her face right now… and I’m  _ pissed _ , and I’m definitely gonna have to compartmentalise for a few days until I have the energy to deal with it, but.”    
  
“But?” Nicole prompts, hopeful.    
  
“Can’t think of a line I wouldn’t cross to keep her safe either.”   
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  


Waverly and Nicole haven’t long left for the night and Wynonna is changing into a nicer top when a car horn beeps loudly from out front.    
  
The watch on her wrist is either slow or Dolls is offensively early. Does he not know her at all? She hasn’t even pre-gamed yet.    
  
Now fully charged, she pulls her phone from her back pocket and taps on Dolls’ text thread, on the verge of typing a colourful message when that horn honks again. It doesn’t stop. She knows it isn’t him as she moves through her house, shoving an arm through her top as she goes. Part of her expects it to be Nicole and she’ll open the door with Waverly hanging out of the window with a pity offer to join them for a movie, as if that’s how they were going to spend their night.    
  
It is without a doubt the last person she is expecting to see.    
  
Standing at the edge of Earp property is Rosita Bustillos.    
  
Everything inside of Wynonna begins to scream. Afraid to take her eyes away in case it’s a trick, she doesn’t. When she’s close enough Wynonna can see the remorseful, resigned tears in her eyes. Having her there feels like both a dream and a nightmare, and Wynonna doesn’t know which one for sure, she just knows the cold air is slashing across her face and Peacemaker is shaking in her outstretched hand. She doesn’t even remember pulling it from its holster.   
  
She’s thought of this moment for so long and with such clarity, and now it’s here.    
  
Rosita’s voice trembles but works long enough to say, “I heard— I heard you and Nicole were in trouble and I… I wanted to help and to tell you to your face that I’m—”   
  
“Don’t you fuckin’ say you’re sorry,” Wynonna spits out furiously, tears streaked down her face. “I’ll kill you if you say you’re sorry.”   
  
“You’re gonna kill me anyway.” In a strange way, Rosita has never felt so alive. Her insides are dithering with adrenaline. “They think I left town again. No-one has to know.”   
  
Wynonna reaches the edge of the property and extends Peacemaker past the line, the barrel of the gun illuminated. It sizzles when it touches Rosita’s forehead. She wonders how long it would take to burn right through. Where was Waverly when a sister needed her?    
  
Rosita’s eyes drift shut. At least she doesn’t have to dread this moment anymore. At least she doesn’t have to run. At least she can be still. She makes her peace, and she waits.   
  
It burns for a while, then it stops.    
  
She doesn’t take a breath or dare open her eyes until she hears the front door to the homestead slam shut. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Nicole heaves Waverly’s second cabin-sized suitcase into the trunk with a grunt, rearranging them to fit better against her duffel bag and the emergency supplies she refuses to travel without. Their reunion a week ago has them closer than ever and so, at her love’s behest, they are going to spend a weekend together in a hotel Waverly has seen online and spent hours gushing over. 

Spending a couple of days away with Waverly wasn’t exactly something Nicole had to be sold on and Nedley is still being caring and generous with her at work, so she takes his offer of some paid time off. What better way to enjoy it than with Waverly?    
  
An obnoxiously loud revving drowns out her thoughts.    
  
Nicole glances up from the full trunk and smiles wryly at the person straddling a motorcycle right outside of her house.    
  
Okay, so she’s spending a weekend with her honey  _ while  _ ignoring Wynonna tagging along. Their rooms are on opposite sides of the building (she called ahead), Wynonna will leave them alone after a certain time of night (she promised), and Waverly has sworn to make it up to Nicole with delicious attention to certain fantasies (things are packed).    
  
Besides, what could possibly go wrong? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for beta duties and being a driving force in making sure this end piece turned out the way that it did. Hope you enjoyed! I'm also a victim to the bird app if anyone ever wants to say hello [twitter](https://twitter.com/nearproximity)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) who was my beta for this one. I could tell within the first edit that this would be safe with her. This chapter was written before S3 began airing and is purely how my silly head wanted an episode to play out. I came across it in my files recently and decided to add to it in hopes that there's enough here to entertain a few of you during lock down and beyond.


End file.
